CHAP. II - WHAT WE LEARN FROM THE SUN

Summary

I do not propose to dwell in this chapter on the views which have been propounded respecting the sun's habitability. It is not merely that I regard those views as too bizarre and fanciful to find place in a serious consideration of the subject I am dealing with, nor that the progress of recent observation has rendered them utterly untenable, but that, in fact, they do not belong to what the sun teaches us. I wish to consider only the real evidence which the sun affords respecting the scheme of creation, to dwell upon the purposes which he subserves in the economy of the solar system, and thence to deduce a lesson respecting those other suns scattered throughout space, which we call the fixed stars.

Let us first endeavour to form adequate conceptions respecting the dimensions of the great central luminary of the solar system.

Let the reader consider a terrestrial globe three inches in diameter, and search out on that globe the tiny triangular speck which represents Great Britain. Then let him endeavour to picture the town in which he lives as represented by the minutest pin-mark that could possibly be made upon this speck. He will then have formed some conception, though but an inadequate one, of the enormous dimensions of the earth's globe, compared with the scene in which his daily life is cast.