What is the basic idea of the Cosmological Principle?. . matter has always been lumped together irregularly throughout the universe, with large empty spaces between. . matter is fairly evenly spread througout the universe, when viewed on a large scale. . matter was once fairly evenly spread throughout the universe, but black holes have caused it to lump together in irregular patterns since the Big Bang. . there is no way to generalize about the distribution of matter in the universe.