SUPRA-STARS AND LIVING GALAXIES 125 



the supra-star to which we belong does not neces- 

 sarily make any perceptible difference to our starry 

 heavens. Mr. R. A. Kennedy has shown 1 that an 

 infinite series of luminous universes of progressively 

 decreasing density would not perceptibly add to 

 the light we receive from the starry heavens. 



It may here be objected that the vast times 

 required for the light of other bright galaxies to 

 reach us would in any case preclude our ever seeing 

 them. J. Ellard Gore, in his " Stellar Universe," 

 p. 113, says: "We may further consider all the 

 systems of the second order as together forming a 

 system of the third order, and so on to the fourth 

 and higher orders. But we need not go further 

 than the third order, for if, as I have shown else- 

 where, light would probably take millions of years 

 to reach us from an external universe of the second 

 order, surely the altogether inconceivable distance 

 of systems of the third order would sufficiently 

 account for their light not having yet reached us, 

 although travelling towards our earth for possibly 

 billions of years ! " 



I cannot accept the implied assumption that the 

 universe is finite in time. If light requires all that 

 time to reach us, what is there to prevent it ? Time 

 is infinite, and its length is purely relative. Wo 

 si i nil. it is true, never see outlying galaxies as they 

 arc, but as they wore so many million or billion 



Afectuiuic, No. 21'JJ, April 22, 1907. 



