8 INTRODUCTION. 



be two billians and two hundred thousand millions of miles. A ray 

 of light, therefore, though its motion is so quick as to be commonly- 

 thought instantaneous, takes up more time in travelling from the 

 stars to us than we do in making a West-India voyage. A sound, 

 which next to light, is considered as the quickest body we are ac- 

 quainted with, would not arrive to us from thence in 50,000 years. 

 And a cannon ball, flying at the rate of 480 miles an hour, would not 

 reach us in 700,000 years. 



The stars, being at such immense distances from the sun, cannot 

 possibly receive from him so strong alight as they seem to have, nor 

 any brightness sufficient to make them visible to us. For the sun's 

 rays must be so scattered and dissipated before they reach such re- 

 mote objects, that they can never be transmitted back to our eyes, 

 so as to render those objects visible by reflection. The stars, there- 

 fore, shine with their own native and unborrowed lustre, as the sun 

 does ; and since each particular star, as well as the sun, is confined 

 to a particular portion of space, it is evident that the stars are of 

 the same nature with the sun. 



It is far from probable that the Almighty, who always acts with 

 infinite wisdom, and does nothing in vain, should create so many 

 glorious suns, fit for so many important purposes, and place them 

 at such distances from each other, without proper objects near 

 enough to be benefited by their influences. Whoever imagines 

 that they were created only to give a faint glimmering light to the 

 inhabitants of this globe, must have a very superficial knowledge of 

 astronomy,* and a mean opinion of the divine wisdom ; since, by 

 an infinitely less exertion of creating power, the Deity could have 

 given our earth much more light by one single additional moon. 



Instead then of one sun and one world only, in the universe, as 

 the unskilful in astronomy imagine, that science discovers to us such 

 an inconceivable number of suns, systems, and worlds, dispersed 

 through boundless space, that if our sun, with all the planets, moons, 

 and comets belonging to it, were annihilated, they would be no 

 more missed by an eye that could take in the whole creation, than 

 a grain of sand from the sea-shore ; the space they possess being 

 comparatively so small, that it would scarcely be a sensible blank in 

 the universe, although the Georgium Sidus, the outermost of our 

 planets, revolves about the sun in an orbit of 10,830 millions of miles 

 in circumference, and some of our comets make excursions up- 

 wards of ten thousand millions of miles beyond the orbit of the 

 Georgium Sidus ; and yet, at that amazing distance, they are in- 

 comparably nearer to the sun than to any of the stars, as is evident 

 from their keeping clear of the attracting power of all the stars, 

 and returning periodically, by virtue of the sun's attraction. 



From what we know of our own system, it may be reasonably con- 

 cluded that all the rest are with equal wisdom contrived, situated, 

 and pi'ovided with accommodations for rational inhabitants. For al- 

 though there is an almost infinite variety in the parts of the creation 

 which we have opportunities of examining, yet there is a general 

 analogy running through and connecting all the parts into one 

 scheme, one design, one whole. 



* Especially since there are many stars which are not visible without the 

 assistance of a good telescope ; and therefore, instead of giving light to this 

 world, can only be seen by a few astronomers. 



