The human brain has obviously a leaning to the “_Infinite_,” and fondles the phantom of the idea. It seems to long with a passionate fervor for this impossible conception, with the hope of intellectually believing it when conceived. What is general among the whole race of Man, of course no individual of that race can be warranted in considering abnormal; nevertheless, there _may_ be a class of superior intelligences, to whom the human bias alluded to may wear all the character of monomania. My question, however, remains unanswered:—Have we any right to infer—let us say, rather, to imagine—an interminable succession of the “clusters of clusters,” or of “Universes” more or less similar? I reply that the “right,” in a case such as this, depends absolutely upon the hardihood of that imagination which ventures to claim the right. Let me declare, only, that, as an individual, I myself feel impelled to the _fancy_—without daring to call it more—that there _does_ exist a _limitless_ succession of Universes, more or less similar to that of which we have cognizance—to that of which _alone_ we shall ever have cognizance—at the very least until the return of our own particular Universe into Unity. _If_ such clusters of clusters exist, however—_and they do_—it is abundantly clear that, having had no part in our origin, they have no portion in our laws. They neither attract us, nor we them. Their material—their spirit is not ours—is not that which obtains in any part of our Universe. They could not impress our senses or our souls. Among them and us—considering all, for the moment, collectively—there are no influences in common. Each exists, apart and independently, _in the bosom of its proper and particular God_. In the conduct of this Discourse, I am aiming less at physical than at metaphysical order. The clearness with which even material phænomena are presented to the understanding, depends very little, I have long since learned to perceive, upon a merely natural, and almost altogether upon a moral, arrangement. If then I seem to step somewhat too discursively from point to point of my topic, let me suggest that I do so in the hope of thus the better keeping unbroken that chain of _graduated impression_ by which alone the intellect of Man can expect to encompass the grandeurs of which I speak, and, in their majestic totality, to comprehend them. So far, our attention has been directed, almost exclusively, to a general and relative grouping of the stellar bodies in space. Of specification there has been little; and whatever ideas of _quantity_ have been conveyed—that is to say, of number, magnitude, and distance—have been conveyed incidentally and by way of preparation for more definitive conceptions. These latter let us now attempt to entertain.