Another beautiful star, Capella, is believed to travel at the rate of thirty miles each second. The speed of Sirius is slower, being only fourteen miles a second. The Pole-star creeps along at the rate of only one mile and a half each second. So also with the rest of the stars. There seems good reason to believe that every star we see shining in the heavens, every star visible in powerful telescopes, is perpetually hastening onward. But hastening whither? God knows! We do not. In all probability not one of the tens of millions of stars which may be seen through telescopes is in repose. This is a matter of conjecture, of reasoning from analogy, and of reasoning also from the working of known laws. We _know_, as a consequence of direct observation, apart from the new spectroscopic method, that at least hundreds are upon the wing. We _assume_, as a matter of the greatest possible likelihood, that all the millions besides, which can not be actually seen to stir, are equally on the move. Knowing what we do know of the laws by which the universe of stars is governed, it seems to us an absolute impossibility that any single star, amid the whole vast host, can be or could be permanently at rest. If by any means a star were brought to repose--what then would happen? It would inevitably start off again, drawn by the attraction of other stars. From whatever direction the strongest pull came, the impulse would be given. Lengthened repose would be out of the question. And this, it seems to us, must be true, not of one star only, here or there, but of every star in the enormous host of radiant suns which make up the mighty Stellar System. Our forefathers, one thousand years ago, could not measure the precise positions of individual stars, as astronomers now are able to do. They had no modern observatories, no telescopes, no spectroscopes, no photographic appliances. These methods of observation we shall explain in another chapter. Their measurements at best were rough, their scientific knowledge was crude. Had we any such accurate observations handed down from one thousand years ago as are made in these days, we should no doubt see clearly many slight differences in the positions of many stars which are not now apparent. But even then we should see no changes sufficient in amount to affect the general outlines of the leading constellations. A star, which in the course of a century makes visible advance over a space in the sky equal to only a small portion of the breadth of the full moon, is looked upon as a fast voyager. One hundred times this degree of movement, if it took place in a considerable number of stars in our sky, would not in centuries very materially change the face of our midnight heavens.