ess, then the background of the sky would
present us an uniform luminosity, like that displayed by the
Galaxy--_since there could be absolutely no point, in all that
background, at which would not exist a star._ The only mode, therefore,
in which, under such a state of affairs, we could comprehend the _voids_
which our telescopes find in innumerable directions, would be by
supposing the distance of the invisible background so immense that no
ray from it has yet been able to reach us at all. That this _may_ be so,
who shall venture to deny? I maintain, simply, that we have not even the
shadow of a reason for believing that it _is_ so.

When speaking of the vulgar propensity to regard all bodies on the Earth
as tending merely to the Earth's centre, I observed that, "with certain
exceptions to be specified hereafter, every body on the Earth tended not
only to the Earth's centre, but in every conceivable direction
besides."[11] The "exceptions" refer to those frequent gaps in the
Heavens, where our utmost scrutiny can detect not only no stellar
bodies, but no indications of their existence:--where yawning chasms,
blacker than Erebus, seem to afford us glimpses, through the boundary
walls of the Universe of Stars, into the illimitable Universe of
Vacancy, beyond. Now as any body, existing on the Earth, chances to
pass, either through its own movement or the Earth's, into a line with
any one of these voids, or cosmical abysses, it clearly is no longer
attracted _in the direction of that void_, and for the moment,
consequently, is "heavier" than at any period, either after or before.
Independently of the consideration of these voids, however, and looking
only at the generally unequable distribution of the stars, we see that
the absolute tendency of bodies on the Earth to the Earth's centre, is
in a state of perpetual variation.

[11] Page 62.

We comprehend, then, the insulation of our Universe. We perceive the
isolation of _that_--of _all_ that which we grasp with the senses. We
know that there exists one _cluster of clusters_--a collection around
which, on all sides, extend the immeasurable wildernesses of a Space _to
all human perception_ untenanted. But _because_ upon the confines of
this Universe of Stars we are compelled to pause, through want of
farther evidence from the senses, is it right to conclude that, in fact,
there _is_ no material point beyond that which we have thus been
permitted to attain? Have we, or