Other curious reflections arise when we think of the form of the earth’s track as it follows the lead of the sun, in a journey which has neither known beginning nor conceivable end. There are probably many minds which have found a kind of consolation in the thought that every year the globe returns to the same place, on the same side of the sun. This idea may have an occult connection with our traditional regard for anniversaries. When that period of the year returns at which any great event in our lives has occurred we have the feeling that the earth, in its annual round, has, in a manner, brought us back to the scene of that event. We think of the earth’s orbit as a well-worn path which we traverse many times in the course of a lifetime. It seems familiar to us, and we grow to have a sort of attachment to it. The sun we are accustomed to regard as a fixed center in space, like the mill or pump around which the harnessed patient mule makes his endless circuits. But the real fact is that the earth never returns to the place in space where it has once quitted. In consequence of the motion of the sun carrying the earth and the other planets along, the track pursued by our globe is a vast spiral in space continually developing and never returning upon its course. It is probable that the tracks of the sun and the others stars are also irregular, and possibly spiral, although, as far as can be at present determined, they appear to be practically straight. Every star, wherever it may be situated, is attracted by its fellow-stars from many sides at once, and although the force is minimized by distance, yet in the course of many ages its effects must become manifest.