space is mathematically proved to be not greater
than as the cube of one to the cube of two hundred and sixty-nine; that
is to say, there is room for 19,395,109 such universes as this of ours
in that small part of infinite space open to the view of Herschel's
telescopes. But when we come to consider the vastness of these regions
of darkness, over which no light has traveled for twenty millions of
years, and remember also that astronomers have looked clear through the
nebulae, and find that they bear no more cubical proportion to the
infinite darkness behind them than the sparks of a chimney do to the
extent of the sky against which they seem projected, so far from
imagining the universe to be infinite, we stand confounded at its
relative insignificance, and are convinced that it bears no more
proportion to infinite space than a fishing-boat does to the Atlantic
Ocean.

There is no possible evasion of this great fact, by any contradictory
hypothesis. It can not be objected "that stars may exist at infinite
distances, whose light has not yet reached the limits of our universe."
If they do, they did not exist from eternity, for there is no possible
distance over which light could not have traveled, during eternal
duration. But their eternal existence is the very thing which the
Atheist is concerned to prove. Grant that infinite space is filled with
worlds _which had a beginning_, and their necessary existence instantly
falls, and we are compelled to seek for a cause of their beginning of
existence; that is to say, a Creator.

Nor will it answer the purpose to say, "that for anything we know to the
contrary, these dark regions may be filled with dark stars."

If the fact were so, it is equally fatal to the dogma of self-existence.
Some stars shine; others are dark. Why so? Wherefore this difference?
Variety is an effect, and demands a prior cause. Were there only two
stars in the sky, or two substances on the earth, and those unlike in
any particular, that plurality, and that variety, would prove that they
could not be infinite or self-existent, but dependent upon some cause
for their existence, and for their variety of form.

But we do know many things contrary to the notion that the dark regions
of infinite space may be full of dark stars. Light is not the only
indication of the presence of a star. The attraction of gravity, which
is wholly independent of light, is a proof quite as certain and
satisfactory to the ast