If we could permit ourselves to draw conclusions from the small material here under consideration, we should hence have reason to believe that the bright stars lie relatively far from us. In other words we should conclude that the bright stars seem to be bright to us not because of their proximity but because of their large intrinsic luminosity. Column 8 really tends in this direction. Certainly the distances are not in this case colossal, but they are nevertheless sufficient to show, in some degree, this uneven partition of the bright stars on the sky. The mean distance of these stars is as large as 7.5 sir. Only α Centauri, Sirius, Procyon and Altair lie at a distance smaller than one siriometer. Of the other stars there are two that lie as far as 30 siriometers from our system. These are the two giants Canopus and Rigel. Even if, as has already been said, the distances of these stars may be considered as rather uncertain, we must regard them as being rather large. As column 8 shows that these stars are rather far from us, so we find from column 12, that their absolute luminosity is rather large. The mean absolute magnitude is, indeed, -2m.1. We shall find that only the greatest and most luminous stars in the stellar system have a negative value of the absolute magnitude. The mean value of the proper motions of the bright stars amounts to 0″.56 per year and may be considered as rather great. We shall, indeed, find that the mean proper motion of the stars down to the 6th magnitude scarcely amounts to a tenth part of this value. On the other hand we find from the table that the high value of this mean is chiefly due to the influence of four of the stars which have a large proper motion, namely Sirius, Arcturus, α Centauri and Procyon. The other stars have a proper motion smaller than 1″ per year and for half the number of stars the proper motion amounts to approximately 0″.05, indicating their relatively great distance. That the absolute velocity of these stars is, indeed, rather small may be found from column 10, giving their radial velocity, which in the mean amounts to only three siriometers per stellar year. From the discussion below of the radial velocities of the stars we shall find that this is a rather small figure. This fact is intimately bound up with the general law in statistical mechanics, to which we return later, that stars with large masses generally have a small velocity. We thus find in the radial velocities fresh evidence, independent of the distance, that these bright stars are giants among the stars in our stellar system.