s; they are not set in any sphaerick frame or firmament (as is
feigned), nor in any vaulted body: accordingly the intervals of some are
from their unfathomable distance matter of opinion rather than of
verification; others do much exceed them and are very far remote, and these
being located in the heaven at varying distances, either in the thinnest
aether or in that most subtile quintessence, or in the void: how are they
to remain in their position during such a mighty swirl of the vast orbe of
such uncertain substance. There have been observed by astronomers 1022
stars; besides these, numberless others are visible, some indeed faint to
our senses, in the case of others our sense is dim and they are hardly
perceived and only by exceptionally keen eyes, and there is no one gifted
with excellent sight who does not when the Moon is dark and the air at its
rarest, discern numbers and numbers dim and wavering with minute lights on
account of the great distance: hence it is credible both that these are
many and that they are never all included in any range of vision. How
immeasurable then must be the space which stretches to those remotest of
fixed stars! How vast and immense the depth of that imaginary sphere! How
far removed from the Earth must the most widely separated stars be and at a
distance transcending all sight, all skill and thought! How monstrous then
such a motion {216} would be! It is evident then that all the heavenly
bodies set as if in destined places are there formed into sphaeres, that
they tend to their own centres, and that round them there is a confluence
of all their parts. And if they have motion, that motion will rather be
that of each round its own centre, as that of the Earth is; or a forward
movement of the centre in an orbit, as that of the Moon: there would not be
circular motion in the case of a too numerous and scattered flock. Of these
stars some situate near the Aequator would seem to be borne around at a
very rapid rate, others nearer the pole to have a somewhat gentler motion,
others, apparently motionless, to have a slight rotation. Yet no
differences in point of light, mass or colours are apparent to us: for they
are as brilliant, clear, glittering and duskish toward the poles, as they
are near the Aequator and the Zodiack: those which remain set in those
positions do not hang, and are neither fixed, nor bound to anything of the
nature of a vault. All the more insane were the circumvolution o