CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE NUMBER OF THE STARS. 



OF all the discoveries that have ever been made in science 

 there are two which especially baffle our powers of com- 

 prehension. They lie at the opposite extremes of nature. 

 One relates to objects which are infinitely small, the other 

 relates to objects which are almost infinitely great. The 

 microscope teaches us that there are animals so minute 

 that if a thousand of them were ranged abreast they 

 would easily swim without being thrown out of line 

 through the eye of the finest cambric needle. Each of 

 those minute creatures is a highly organized number of 

 particles, capable of moving about, of finding and devour- 

 ing its food, and of behaving in all other respects as 

 becomes an animal as distinguished from an unorganized 

 piece of matter. The mind is incapable of realising the 

 structure of these little creatures, and of fully appreciating 

 their marvellous adaptation to the life they are destined to 

 lead. If these animals excite our astonishment by reason 

 of their extreme minuteness, there is an appeal made to 

 conceptions of an entirely difierent character when we 

 learn the lessons which the telescope teaches. As the 

 microscope reveals the excessively minute so does the tele- 



