As for Republicanism, no analogy could be found for it upon the face of the earth--unless we except the case of the "prairie dogs," an exception which seems, to demonstrate, if anything, that democracy is a very admirable form of government--for dogs. _April 6th._--Last night had a fine view of Alpha Lyrae, whose disk, through our captain's spy glass, subtends an angle of half a degree, looking very much as our sun does to the naked eye on a misty day. Alpha Lyrae, although so very much larger than our sun, by the by, resembles him closely as regards its spots, its atmosphere, and in many other particulars. It is only within the last century, Pundit tells me, that the binary relation existing between these two orbs began even to be suspected. The evident motion of our system in the heavens was (strange to say!) referred to an orbit about a prodigious star in the center of the galaxy. About this star, or at all events about a center of gravity common to all the globes of the Milky Way and supposed to be near Alcyone in the Pleiades, every one of these globes was declared to be revolving, our own performing the circuit in a period of 117,000,000 of years! _We_, with our present lights, our vast telescopic improvements, and so forth, of course find it difficult to comprehend _the ground_ of an idea such as this. Its first propagator was one Mudler. He was led, we must presume, to this wild hypothesis by mere analogy in the first instance; but, this being the case, he should have at least adhered to analogy in its development. A great central orb was, in fact, suggested; so far Mudler was consistent. This central orb, however, dynamically, should have been greater than all its surrounding orbs taken together. The question might then have been asked, "Why do we not see it?" _We_, especially, who occupy the mid region of the cluster--the very locality _near_ which, at least, must be situated this inconceivable central sun. The astronomer, perhaps, at this point, took refuge in the suggestion of non-luminosity; and here analogy was suddenly let fall. But even admitting the central orb non-luminous, how did he manage to explain its failure to be rendered visible by the incalculable host of glorious suns glaring in all directions about it? No doubt what he finally maintained was merely a center of gravity common to all the revolving orbs--but here again analogy must have been let fall. Our system revolves, it is true, about a common center of gravity, but it does this in connection with and in consequence of a material sun whose mass more than counterbalances the rest of the system. The mathematical circle is a curve composed of an infinity of straight lines; but this idea of the circle--this idea of it which, in regard to all earthly geometry, we consider as merely the mathematical, in contradistinction from the practical, idea--is, in sober fact, the _practical_ conception which alone we have any