parted by a much greater distance, then when the Sun
approached the tropick, all things in the other deserted part of the globe,
in some higher latitude, would be desolate and (by reason of the too
prolonged absence of the Sun) brought to destruction. As it is, however,
all is so proportioned that the whole terrestrial globe has its own varying
seasons in succession, and alternations of condition, appropriate and
needful: either from the more direct and vertical radiation of light, or
from its increased tarriance above the horizon.

Around these poles of the Ecliptick the direction of the poles of the Earth
is borne: and by this motion the praecession of the aequinoxes is apparent
to us.

* * * * *

{234} CHAP. VIII.

On the Praecession of the Aequinoxes, from the magnetick
motion of the poles of the Earth, in the Arctick
_and Antarctick circle of the Zodiack._

Primitive mathematicians, since they did not pay attention to the
inequaelities of the years, made no distinction between the aequinoctial,
or solstitial revolving year, and that which is taken from some one of the
fixed stars. Even the Olympick years, which they used to reckon from the
rising of the dogstar, they thought to be the same as those counted from
the solstice. Hipparchus of Rhodes was the first to call attention to the
fact that these differ from each other, and discovered that the year was
longer when measured by the fixed stars than by the aequinox or solstice:
whence he supposed that there was in the fixed stars also some motion in a
common sequence; but very slow, and not at once perceptible. After him
Menelaus, a Roman geometer, then Ptolemy, and long afterward Mahometes
Aractensis, and several more, in all their literary memoirs, perceived that
the fixed stars and the whole firmament proceeded in an orderly sequence,
regarding as they did the heaven, not the earth, and not understanding the
magnetical inclinations. But we shall demomstrate that it proceeds rather
from a certain rotatory motion of the Earth's axis, than that that eighth
sphaere (so called) the firmament, or non-moving empyrean, revolves studded
with innumerable globes and stars, whose distances from the Earth have
never been proved by anyone, nor can be proved (the whole universe gliding,
as it were). And surely it should seem much more likely that the
appearances in the heavens should be clearly accounted for by a certain
inflection and inc