ed in opposition. One veteran had
seen clearly from the beginning whither all this sort of thing was sure
to lead. 'Epicurus approves none of these things.'[140:2] It was no
good his having destroyed the old traditional superstition, if people
by deifying the stars were to fill the sky with seven times seven as
many objects of worship as had been there before. He allows no
_Schwaermerei_ about the stars. They are _not_ divine animate beings, or
guided by Gods. Why cannot the astrologers leave God in peace? When
their orbits are irregular it is _not_ because they are looking for
food. They are just conglomerations of ordinary atoms of air or fire--it
does not matter which. They are not even very large--only about as large
as they look, or perhaps smaller, since most fires tend to look bigger
at a distance. They are not at all certainly everlasting. It is quite
likely that the sun comes to an end every day, and a new one rises in
the morning. All kinds of explanations are possible, and none certain.
+Monon ho mythos apesto.+ In any case, as you value your life and your
reason, do not begin making myths about them!

On other lines came what might have been the effective protest of real
Science, when Aristarchus of Samos (250 B. C.) argued that the earth was
not really the centre of the universe, but revolved round the Sun. But
his hypothesis did not account for the phenomena as completely as the
current theory with its 'Epicycles'; his fellow astronomers were against
him; Cleanthes the Stoic denounced him for 'disturbing the Hearth of the
Universe', and his heresy made little headway.[141:1]

The planets in their seven spheres surrounding the earth continued to be
objects of adoration. They had their special gods or guiding spirits
assigned them. Their ordered movements through space, it was held,
produce a vast and eternal harmony. It is beautiful beyond all earthly
music, this Music of the Spheres, beyond all human dreams of what music
might be. The only pity is that--except for a few individuals in
trances--nobody has ever heard it. Circumstances seem always to be
unfavourable. It may be that we are too far off, though, considering the
vastness of the orchestra, this seems improbable. More likely we are
merely deaf to it because it never stops and we have been in the middle
of it since we first drew breath.[142:1]

The planets also become Elements in the Kosmos, _Stoicheia_. It is
significant that in Hellenistic theol