near the Milky Way, we shall find more stars in both of them than
elsewhere; if we take them in the region anywhere around the poles
of the Milky Way, we shall find fewer stars, but they will be
equally numerous in each of the two regions. We infer from this
that whatever cause determined the number of the stars in space
was of the same nature in every two antipodal regions of the
heavens.

Another unity marked with yet more precision is seen in the
chemical elements of which stars are composed. We know that the
sun is composed of the same elements which we find on the earth
and into which we resolve compounds in our laboratories. These
same elements are found in the most distant stars. It is true that
some of these bodies seem to contain elements which we do not find
on earth. But as these unknown elements are scattered from one
extreme of the universe to the other, they only serve still
further to enforce the unity which runs through the whole. The
nebulae are composed, in part at least, of forms of matter
dissimilar to any with which we are acquainted. But, different
though they may be, they are alike in their general character
throughout the whole field we are considering. Even in such a
feature as the proper motions of the stars, the same unity is
seen. The reader doubtless knows that each of these objects is
flying through space on its own course with a speed comparable
with that of the earth around the sun. These speeds range from the
smallest limit up to more than one hundred miles a second. Such
diversity might seem to detract from the unity of the whole; but
when we seek to learn something definite by taking their average,
we find this average to be, so far as can yet be determined, much
the same in opposite regions of the universe. Quite recently it