328 NEWCOMB 



number of the stars in space was of the same nature in 

 every two antipodal regions of the heavens. 



Another unity marked with yet more precision is seen in 

 the chemical elements of which stars are composed. We 

 know that the sun is composed of the same elements which 

 we find on the earth and into which we resolve compounds 

 in our laboratories. These same elements are found in the 

 most distant stars. It is true that some of these bodies 

 seem to contain elements which we do not find on earth. 

 But as these unknown elements are scattered from one 

 extreme of the universe to the other, they only serve still 

 further to enforce the unity which runs through the whole. 

 The nebulae are composed, in part at least, of forms of 

 matter dissimilar to any with which we are acquainted. 

 But, different though they may be, they are alike in their 

 general character throughout the whole field we are con- 

 sidering. Even in such a feature as the proper motions of 

 the stars, the same unity is seen. The reader doubtless 

 knows that each of these objects is flying through space on 

 its own course with a speed comparable with that of the 

 earth around the sun. These speeds range from the smalkst 

 limit up to more than one hundred miles a second. Such 

 diversity might seem to detract from the unity of the whole; 

 but when we seek to learn something definite by taking their 

 average, we find this average to be, so far as can yet be 

 determined, much the same in opposite regions of the uni- 

 verse. Quite recently it has become probable that a certain 

 class of very bright stars known as Orion stars because 

 there are many of them in the most brilliant of our con- 

 stellations which are scattered along the whole course of 

 the Milky Way, have one and all, in the general average, 

 slower motions than other stars. Here again we have a 

 definable characteristic extending through the universe. In 

 drawing attention to these points of similarity throughout 

 the whole universe, it must not be supposed that we base our 

 conclusions directly upon them. The point they bring out is 

 that the universe is in the nature of an organized system; 

 and it is upon the fact of its being such a system that we 

 are able, by other facts, to reach conclusions as to its struc- 

 ture, extent, and other characteristics. 



