164 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY. 



be a self-luminous body or a sun, will it not strike all 

 eyes as of pre-eminent splendour and greatness? But we 

 do not see any such fixed star so exceptionally distin- 

 guishing itself now glittering among the host of heaven. 

 In fact, it need not astonish us if the case is so. Although 

 it surpassed our sun in size ten thousand times, yet if its 

 distance were a hundred 'times greater than that of Sirius, 

 it would not appear greater and brighter than that star. 



But perhaps it is reserved for future times to discover 

 hereafter the region at least where is to be found the 

 centre of the system of the fixed stars to which our sun 

 belongs, or perhaps to determine exactly where the 

 central body of the universe must be located, and towards 

 which all the parts of the universe agree in tending with 

 congruent motion. 1 We shall leave it to Mr. Wright of 



1 1 have a conjecture, and it seems to me to be very probable, that 

 Sirius, or the Dog Star, is the central body of the stars that make 

 up the Milky Way, and that it occupies the centre with which they 

 are all in relation. This system, as sketched in the first part of this 

 treatise, may be regarded as a swarm of suns accumulated in a common 

 plane, and dispersed on all sides from their centre through a certain 

 circular space formed by their small deviations from the said plane, 

 and spread out somewhat on both sides. Thus viewed, the sun, 

 being situated near this plane, will see the appearance of that circular 

 zone as a glimmering white light, extended in breadth most on that 

 side on which it is placed nearest the outmost boundary of the system ; 

 for it is easy to suppose that it will not be found exactly in the 

 centre. Now, the zone of the Milky Way is broadest in the part 

 that lies between the constellations of the Swan and Sagittarius, and 

 consequently this will be the side where the place of our sun is nearest 

 the outmost periphery of the circular system ; and in this part of it 

 we must hold the nearest place to be that where the constellations 

 of the Eagle and Fox and Goose are situated, because at the interval 

 where the Milky Way bifurcates, the greatest visible dispersion of 

 stars is perceived. If, therefore, we draw a line from a spot near 

 the tail of the Eagle through the plane of the Milky Way to the 



