3H THE WORLD MACHINE 



circled by twenty odd moons or satellites ; of a swarm of asteroids ; 

 a number of more or less prominent comets. These revolve 

 within a very thin, very broad zone, that we might picture 

 as like a cart-wheel cheese, or a very thin grindstone ; or if you 

 like, a very thick penny. In order of size or arrangement there 

 seems no fixed relation ; the mass of a single planet is greater 

 than that of all the rest of the satellites of the sun put together. 

 Yet even with Jupiter added, they form but an infinitesimal 

 portion of the sun itself grains of small shot beside a cannon- 

 bail. 



What lies beyond ? The answer, so far as we may gather, 

 is simply : space space and space, and, for all we shall ever care, 

 never an end. Neptune is distant from us thirty times farther 

 than we are distant from the sun ; so far as we know, for a 

 thousand times this distance there is nothing, save, it may be, 

 swarms of meteorites, speeding comets, and fragments of ex- 

 ploded worlds. There is certainly no star, no sun, within this 

 distance ; if there were any dark body at all comparable with the 

 grandeur of the sun, its existence would be disclosed by the 

 disturbing influence it would exercise on the outer planets. 



Not in a thousand times the distance of Neptune, not, in 

 so far as we know, in nearly ten thousand times. Were we to 

 picture the whole solar system as a huge vessel, perhaps the 

 size of the Lusitania, anchored or slowly floating in the midst 

 of the lone wastes of the Atlantic, unvisited and uncompanioned 

 by any other craft, large or small, we should have some sense 

 of our isolation in the cosmos. 



Are we anchored, or do we drift ? Our sun is obviously 

 one of the stars. Is it, and are they, fixed and immutable within 

 the eternity of space and time ? Was this universe of flaming 

 suns cast, as it were, in a solid mould ? If there be motion, 

 do we merely drift, or are we speeding the stellar ways at 

 velocities compared with which the flash of the cannon-ball 

 would seem like the leisurely meandering of a sluggish stream ? 



If we move, where, in distant aeons, shall we bring up ? 



