38. Among these different suns, the greater number are, like our own, surrounded by secondary worlds, which they illuminate and make fruitful by the same laws which preside in the life of our planetary system. Some of them, like Sirius, are thousands of times more magnificent in dimensions and in grandeur than ours, their role are more important in the universe, whilst a very great number of planets very superior to ours surround them. Others are very dissimilar in their astral functions. Thus a certain number of these suns, veritable twins of the sidereal order, are accompanied by their brothers of the same age, and form in space binary systems, to which nature has given entirely different functions than those which belong to our sun. * There the years are measured no more by the same periods, neither are the days measured by the same suns; and these worlds lighted by a double luminary have received a share of conditions of existence unimaginable to those who have not emerged from this little terrestrial globe.
Other stars without attendants, deprived of planets, have received the best elements of habitability which are given to any of them. The laws of nature are diversified in this immensity; and, if unity is the watchword of the universe, infinite variety is no less the eternal attribute.
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* This is what we call in Astronomy binary stars (double stars). They are two suns, one revolving around the other, as a planet does around its sun. What a strange and magnificent show the inhabitants of these worlds, comprised of these systems illuminated by double suns, should enjoy! But also, how different the conditions of life should be there!
In a latter communication, the spirit of Galileo affirms: “There are, indeed, more complex systems in which different suns, one facing the other, perform the role of satellites. Marvelous effects of light are then produced for the inhabitants of the globes they illuminate. In fact, despite the apparent proximity of one to the other, inhabited worlds can revolve amongst them and receive alternatively the waves of diversely colored light, in whose union comprises the white light.
