sole center of mortal life and of divine care
would have found much comfort:

"It is very singular that no visible system yet discerned has any
resemblance to the orderly and beautiful system in which we live; and
one is thus led to think that probably our system is unique in its
character. At least it is unique among all _known_ systems."

If we grant that the solar system is the only one in which small planets
exist revolving around their sun in nearly circular orbits, then indeed
we seem to have closed all the outer universe against such beings as the
inhabitants of the earth. Beyond the sun's domain only whirling stars,
coupled in eccentric orbits, dark stars, some of them, but no
planets--in short a wilderness, full of all energies except those of
sentient life! This is not a pleasing picture, and I do not think we are
driven to contemplate it. Beyond doubt, Dr. See is right in concluding
that double and multiple star systems, with their components all of
magnitudes comparable among themselves, revolving in exceedingly
eccentric orbits under the stress of mutual gravitation, bear no
resemblance to the orderly system of our sun with its attendant worlds.
And it is not easy to imagine that the respective members of such
systems could themselves be the centers of minor systems of planets, on
account of the perturbing influences to which the orbits of such minor
systems would be subjected.

But the double and multiple stars, numerous though they be, are
outnumbered a hundred to one by the single stars which shine alone as
our sun does. What reason can we have, then, for excluding these single
stars, constituting as they do the vast majority of the celestial host,
from a similarity to the sun in respect to the manner of their evolution
from the original nebulous condition? These stars exhibit no companions,
such planetary attendants as they may have lying, on account of their
minuteness, far beyond the reach of our most powerful instruments. But
since they vastly outnumber the binary and multiple systems, and since
they resemble the sun in having no large attendants, should we be
justified, after all, in regarding our system as "unique"? It is true we
do not know, by visual evidence, that the single stars have planets, but
we find planets attending the only representative of that class of stars
that we are able to approach closely--the sun--and we know that the
existence of those planets is no mere accident, but the