The Milky Way being in a certain sense the foundation on which the
whole system is constructed, we have first to notice the symmetry
of the whole. This is seen in the fact that a certain resemblance
is found in any two opposite regions of the sky, no matter where
we choose them. If we take them in the Milky Way, the stars are
more numerous than elsewhere; if we take opposite regions in or
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.
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