It goes through immensity, dragging us along, travelling towards the unknown, without ever striking other bodies, finding always sufficient space to move in with a rapidity which makes one giddy; and this has gone on for thousands and millions of centuries without either it or the earth who follows it in its flight ever passing twice over the same spot." They all listened to Gabriel open-mouthed with astonishment, and their bright eyes seemed dazed and bewildered.
"It is enough to drive one mad," murmured the bell-ringer.

"What then is man, Gabriel ?" "Nothing; even as this earth, which seems so large, and that we have peopled with religions, kingdoms and revelations from God, is nothing.
Dreams of ants! even less! This same sun which seems so enormous compared to our globe is nothing more than an atom in immensity.

What you call stars are other suns like ours, surrounded by planets like our earth, but which are invisible on account of their small size.

How many are they?
Man brings his optical instruments to perfection and is able to pierce further into the fields of heaven, discovering ever more and more.

Those which are scarcely visible in the infinite appear much nearer when a new telescope is invented, and beyond them in the depths of space others and again others appear, and so on everlastingly.