THE STELLAR UNIVERSE. 



381 



of the moon, which may perhaps occupy its entire field of view. A magnify- 

 ing power twice as great will show at once only half the moon's apparent 

 diameter, and therefore only a fourth of its entire disk. One of three times the 

 power would show only one third of its diameter, and one ninth of its disk, 

 and so on. Let it be remembered, then, that some of the magnifying powers 

 with which the researches of Sir William Herschel were made, gave a field 

 of view not so great as a fourth part of the moon's disk, and we shall form some 

 idea, however inadequate and obscure, of the profusion of evidences of creative 

 power which the firmament presented to that observer. He states that in 

 those parts of the Milky Way in which the stars were most thinly scattered, 

 he saw upon an average eighty stars in each field. In an hour, fifteen de- 

 grees of the firmament were carried before his telescope, showing successively 

 sixty distinct fields. Allowing eighty stars for each field, there were thus ex- 

 hibited to his astonished view in a single hour without moving the telescope 

 four thousand eight hundred distinct stars ! But by moving the instrument at 

 the same time in the vertical direction, he found that in a space of the firma- 

 ment not more than fifteen degrees long by four degrees broad, he was able 

 to observe fifty thousand stars large enough to be individually visible and 

 distinctly counted ! The surprising character of this result will be more 

 adequately appreciated if it is remembered that this number of stars thus seen 

 in a space of the heavens not more than thirty diameters of the moon's disk 

 in length and eight in breadth, is fifty times greater than all the stars taken 

 together which the naked eye can perceive at any one time in the heavens on 

 the most serene and unclouded night ! And this, be it observed, is in that 

 part of the Milky Way which is most sparsely strewn with stars ! What are 

 we to say of the richer parts ! 



On presenting the telescope to the richer portions of the Via Lactea, Her- 

 schel found, as might be expected, much greater numbers of stars. In a single 

 field he was able to count 588 stars, and for fifteen minutes, the firmament 

 being moved before his telescope by the diurnal motion, no diminution of 

 number was apparent, so that he estimated that in that space of time 116,000 

 stars must have passed in review before him ; the number seen at any one 

 time being greater than can be seen by the naked eye on the entire firmament, 

 except on the clearest nights. 



It appears, then, that our sun is an individual star, forming only a single 

 unit in a cluster or mass of many millions of other similar stars ; that this 

 cluster has limited dimensions, has ascertainable length, breadth, and thick- 

 ness, and in short, forms what may be expressed by a universe of solar sys- 

 tems. The mind, still unsatisfied, is as urgent as before in its questions re- 

 garding the remainder of immensity ! However vast the dimensions of this 

 mass of suns be, they are nevertheless finite. However stupendous be the 

 space included within them, it is still nothing compared to the immensity 

 which lies outside ! Is that immensity a vast solitude ? Are its unexplored 

 realms dark and silent? Has Omnipotence circumscribed its agency, and 

 has infinite Beneficence left those unfathomed regions destitute of evidence of 

 its power 1 



That the infinitude of space should exist without a purpose, unoccupied by 

 any works of creation, is plainly incompatible with all our notions of the 

 character and attributes of the Author of the universe, whether derived from 

 the voice of revelation or from the light of nature. We should therefore infer, 

 even in the absence of direct evidence, that some works of creation are dis- 

 persed through those spaces which lie beyond the limits of that vast stellar 

 cluster in which our system is placed. Nay, we should be led by the most 

 obvious analogies, to conjecture that other stellar clusters like our own, are 



