THE NUMBER OF THE STARS. 253 



tude of a little star not nearly so bright as many of those 

 which we see over our heads every night. Imagine the 

 sun's light subdivided into two hundred thousand parts, 

 each of which would give us only a feeble illumination, 

 and then imagine that each of these parts was again 

 divided into two hundred thousand parts more, and it is 

 one of these last fragments that would represent the 

 miserable lustre which the sun would then display. 



From these considerations we can enunciate the magni- 

 ficent truth which astronomy discloses to us. I do not 

 think that in the whole range of nature there is any 

 thought so magnificent or so imposing as that which teaches 

 us to regard every star of every constellation as a sun. 

 We cannot indeed assert that they are all so great as our 

 sun, but we can affirm with certainty that many of them 

 are far greater and far more splendid. Considering that 

 our sun presides over a system of worlds of which the 

 earth is one, that it gives light and heat to those worlds, 

 and guides them in their movements, it would greatly 

 enlarge our conceptions of the universe if we were as- 

 sured that there was even one more sun as large and as 

 splendidly attended as is our own. But now we find that 

 not only is there one additional sun, but that they teem in 

 uncounted thousands through space. Look, for example, on 

 the next fine night at the Great Bear, the best known of 

 all our northern constellations, and there you see seven 

 stars forming the well-known feature. Figure in your 

 mind's eye each one of those stars in the likeness of a 

 majestic sun as big, warm, and bright as our sun, and look 

 at other parts of the sky and repeat the process with the 

 other constellations, and your conception of the magni- 



