In this situation it is only by chance, or through foreknowledge, that we can distinguish our sun at all, for it is lost among the stars; and when we discover it we find that it is only one of the smaller and less conspicuous members of the sparkling host.
We rapidly approach, and when we have arrived within a distance comparable with that of its planets, we see that the sun has increased in apparent magnitude, until now it enormously outshines all the other stars, and its rays begin to produce the effect of daylight upon the orbs that they reach.

But we are in no danger of mistaking its apparent superiority to its fellow stars for a real one, because we clearly perceive that our nearness alone makes it seem so great and overpowering.
And now we observe that this star that we have drawn near to has attending it a number of minute satellites, faintly shining specks, that circle about it as if charmed, like night-wandering insects, by its splendor.

It is manifest to us at the first glance that without the sun these obedient little planets would not exist; it is his attraction that binds them together in a system, and his rays that make them visible to one another in the abyss of space.

Although they vary in relative size, yet we observe a striking similarity among them.

They are all globular bodies, they all turn upon their axes, they all travel about the sun in the same direction, and their paths all lie very nearly in one plane.
Some of them have one or more moons, or satellites, circling about them in imitation of their own revolution about the sun.