our earth. The fifth is Jupiter; he is distant from
the Sun five hundred and fifty-seven million miles, and consequently
moves round in a circle greater than that of Mars. The sixth world is
Saturn; he is distant from the Sun seven hundred and sixty-three million
miles, and consequently moves round in a circle that surrounds the
circles or orbits of all the other worlds or planets.

The space, therefore, in the air, or in the immensity of space, that
our solar system takes up for the several worlds to perform their
revolutions in round the Sun, is of the extent in a strait line of the
whole diameter of the orbit or circle in which Saturn moves round the
Sun, which being double his distance from the Sun, is fifteen hundred
and twenty-six million miles; and its circular extent is nearly five
thousand million; and its globical content is almost three thousand five
hundred million times three thousand five hundred million square miles.
[NOTE by Paine: If it should be asked, how can man know these things? I
have one plain answer to give, which is, that man knows how to calculate
an eclipse, and also how to calculate to a minute of time when the
planet Venus, in making her revolutions round the Sun, will come in a
strait line between our earth and the Sun, and will appear to us about
the size of a large pea passing across the face of the Sun. This happens
but twice in about a hundred years, at the distance of about eight years
from each other, and has happened twice in our time, both of which were
foreknown by calculation. It can also be known when they will happen
again for a thousand years to come, or to any other portion of time.
As therefore, man could not be able to do these things if he did not
understand the solar system, and the manner in which the revolutions of
the several planets or worlds are performed, the fact of calculating an
eclipse, or a transit of Venus, is a proof in point that the knowledge
exists; and as to a few thousand, or even a few million miles, more
or less, it makes scarcely any sensible difference in such immense
distances.--Author.]

But this, immense as it is, is only one system of worlds. Beyond this,
at a vast distance into space, far beyond all power of calculation, are
the stars called the fixed stars. They are called fixed, because they
have no revolutionary motion, as the six worlds or planets have that
I have been describing. Those fixed stars continue always at the same
distance from