lusters themselves, again, as
_revolving_ about some still more august sphere;--this latter, still
again, _with_ its encircling clusters, as but one of a yet more
magnificent series of agglomerations, _gyrating_ about yet another orb
central _to them_--some orb still more unspeakably sublime--some orb, let
us rather say, of infinite sublimity endlessly multiplied by the
infinitely sublime. Such are the conditions, continued in perpetuity,
which the voice of what some people term "analogy" calls upon the Fancy
to depict and the Reason to contemplate, if possible, without becoming
dissatisfied with the picture. Such, _in general_, are the interminable
gyrations beyond gyration which we have been instructed by Philosophy to
comprehend and to account for, at least in the best manner we can. Now
and then, however, a philosopher proper--one whose phrenzy takes a very
determinate turn--whose genius, to speak more reverentially, has a
strongly-pronounced washerwomanish bias, doing every thing up by the
dozen--enables us to see _precisely_ that point out of sight, at which
the revolutionary processes in question do, and of right ought to, come
to an end.

It is hardly worth while, perhaps, even to sneer at the reveries of
Fourrier:--but much has been said, latterly, of the hypothesis of
Maedler--that there exists, in the centre of the Galaxy, a stupendous
globe about which all the systems of the cluster revolve. The _period_
of our own, indeed, has been stated--117 millions of years.

That our Sun has a motion in space, independently of its rotation, and
revolution about the system's centre of gravity, has long been
suspected. This motion, granting it to exist, would be manifested
perspectively. The stars in that firmamental region which we were
leaving behind us, would, in a very long series of years, become
crowded; those in the opposite quarter, scattered. Now, by means of
astronomical History, we ascertain, cloudily, that some such phaenomena
have occurred. On this ground it has been declared that our system is
moving to a point in the heavens diametrically opposite the star Zeta
Herculis:--but this inference is, perhaps, the maximum to which we have
any logical right. Maedler, however, has gone so far as to designate a
particular star, Alcyone in the Pleiades, as being at or about the very
spot around which a general _revolution_ is performed.

Now, since by "analogy" we are led, in the first instance, to these
dreams, i