232 GENERAL MOVEMENT OF THE STARS. 



30 degrees, those situated at the point of the heavens diametrically 

 opposite, and those of the zone of the great circle of which these two 

 points are the poles, shall have been completely observed, (as has 

 begun to be executed at Dorpat for a part of them,) we shall be 

 enabled step by step to attain a more profound insight into the 

 organism of our stellar system. 



"I regard," adds M. Masdler in terminating his great work, " the 

 complete assemblage of stars which revolve around the group of the 

 Pleiades, their common centre of gravity, as forming a sort of isle in the 

 universe; and I admit that there are in the vicinity of and beyond this 

 stellar system, other analogous isles, of which the nebula? offer us 

 various examples. "We cannot as yet decide, if some among them 

 stand in a relation of neighborhood and connexion with our own; but 

 it may be possible that there exists between them and our Milky Way 

 a common bond, the last being always to be considered as of a more 

 elevated order. Yet it does not appear to me probable that the par- 

 ticular configuration of our isle in the universe should be a model for 

 the others, as well because this conformity would but little accord 

 with the variety which prevails in the subordinate systems, as that 

 the very different forms under which the nebulas present themselves 

 to our. view could scarcely be explained by merely optical differences. 

 Still it is true that some of these isles have an appearance which 

 offers a striking similitude to that of our own; such being particularly 

 the case with the beautiful annular nebula of the Lyre, whose interior, 

 according to recent explorations, is not entirely void and obscure, 

 and which, taken as a whole, sufficiently represents our stellar system 

 as it would be seen at the distance of the nebula?. 



' ' The preceding considerations have led us to the contemplation 

 of an extent of space and time, which, relatively speaking, we may 

 well term infinite, and the number of bodies in the universe is far 

 beyond our powers of computation. When, from our terrestrial dwel- 

 ling-place, we strive to penetrate deeper and deeper into space, every 

 scale of measurement, however colossal it may at first appear to us, 

 is annihilated, so to speak, before the immensity of the heavens. It is 

 not so much the infinity of numbers which renders this grand organism 

 so worthy of admiration, for this- manifests our own littleness still 

 more than the greatness of the universe; it is the inexhaustible multi- 

 tude of forms and figures which sets forth before our eyes in the 

 most striking manner the infinite power and wisdom of the Creator. 

 Nature works not after models; she knows how to combine with the 

 strictest subordination to a single general law, the most pliant liberty 

 of action and the richest variety of development. Hence, the medita- 

 tive spirit may range through this infinite without fear of ever 

 losing ^ the_ guiding thread. Every new member, each successive 

 gradation in the universe, is not a repetition on a wider scale [of 

 what was already known; it presents to us formations which, whether 

 from without or within, extend beyond all prevision our previous 

 conceptions. 



' The greatest explorers of the skies in the two last centuries, 

 attached themselves strongly to the idea that our planetary system 

 was a model, in itself, of the system or systems of the fixed stars; they 



