mblages_ of such bodies--any two "systems"--as having more than a
general resemblance.[10] Our telescopes, at this point, thoroughly
confirm our deductions. Taking our own solar system, then, as merely a
loose or general type of all, we have so far proceeded in our subject as
to survey the Universe under the aspect of a spherical space, throughout
which, dispersed with merely general equability, exist a number of but
generally similar _systems_.

[10] It is not _impossible_ that some unlooked-for optical
improvement may disclose to us, among innumerable varieties of
systems, a luminous sun, encircled by luminous and non-luminous
rings, within and without and between which, revolve luminous
and non-luminous planets, attended by moons having moons--and
even these latter again having moons.

Let us now, expanding our conceptions, look upon each of these systems
as in itself an atom; which in fact it is, when we consider it as but
one of the countless myriads of systems which constitute the Universe.
Regarding all, then, as but colossal atoms, each with the same
ineradicable tendency to Unity which characterizes the actual atoms of
which it consists--we enter at once upon a new order of aggregations.
The smaller systems, in the vicinity of a larger one, would, inevitably,
be drawn into still closer vicinity. A thousand would assemble here; a
million there--perhaps here, again, even a billion--leaving, thus,
immeasurable vacancies in space. And if now, it be demanded why, in the
case of these systems--of these merely Titanic atoms--I speak, simply,
of an "assemblage," and not, as in the case of the actual atoms, of a
more or less consolidated agglomeration:--if it be asked, for instance,
why I do not carry what I suggest to its legitimate conclusion, and
describe, at once, these assemblages of system-atoms as rushing to
consolidation in spheres--as each becoming condensed into one
magnificent sun--my reply is that [Greek: mellonta tauta]--I am but
pausing, for a moment, on the awful threshold of _the Future_. For the
present, calling these assemblages "clusters," we see them in the
incipient stages of their consolidation. Their _absolute_ consolidation
is _to come_.

We have now reached a point from which we behold the Universe as a
spherical space, interspersed, _unequably_, with _clusters_. It will be
noticed that I here prefer the adverb "unequably" to the phrase "with a
merely general equabilit