Chap. 3.] ACCOUXT OF THE TVOELD. 17 



credible swiftness ^ I am not able to say, whether the sound 

 caused by the whirling about of so great a mass be excessive, 

 and, therefore, far beyond what our ears can perceive, nor, 

 indeed, whether the resounding of so many stars, all carried 

 along at the same time and revolving in their orbits, may 

 not produce a kind of delightfid harmony of incredible sweet- 

 ness^. To us, who are in the interior, the world appears to 

 glide silently along, both by day and by night. 



Various circumstances in natiu*e prove to us, that there 

 are impressed on the heavens innumerable figures of animals 

 and of all kinds of objects, and that its surface is not per- 

 fectly polished like the eggs of birds, as some celebrated 

 authors assert^. For w^e find that the seeds of all bodies fall 

 do^Ti from it, principally into the ocean, and, being mixed 

 together, that a variety of monstrous forms are in this way 

 frequently produced. And, indeed, this is evident to the eye ; 

 for, in one part, Ave have the figure of a wain, in another of 

 a bear, of a bull, and of a letter"* ; while, in the middle of them, 

 over our heads, there is a white circle^. 



(4.) AVith respect to the name, I am influenced by the 

 unanimous opinions of all nations. For what the Greeks, 

 from its being ornamented, have termed ivocr/jos, we, from its 

 perfect and complete elegance, have termed oniindus. The 

 name caelum, no doubt, refers to its being engraven, as it 



* See Ptolemy, uhi supra. 



2 This opinion, which was maintained by Pythagoras, is noticed and 

 derided by Ai'istotle, De Coelo, hb. ii. cap. 9. p. 462-3. A brief account 

 of Pythagoras's doctrine on this subject is contained in Enfield's Pliilo- 

 sophy, i. 386. 



•* Phny probably here refers to the opinion which Cicero puts into the 

 mouth of one of the interlocutors in his treatise De Nat. Deor. ii. 47, 

 " Quid enun pulchrius ea figiu'a, quse sola omnes ahas figuras complesa 

 continet, quseque nilul asperitatis habere, niliil offensionis potest, nihO. 

 incisum angvihs, nihil anfractibus, nihil eminens, niliU lacunosum ? " 



■* The letter A, in the constellation of the triangle ; it is named Af Xrwrov 

 by Ai'atus, 1. 235 ; also by Manihus, i. 360. We may remark, that, 

 except in this one case, the constellations have no visible resemblance to 

 the objects of which they bear the name. 



^ " Locum hmic Phnii de Gralaxia, sive Lactea via, interpretantur omnes 

 docti." Alexandre, in Lemaire, i. 227. It may be remarked, that the 

 word vertex is here used in the sense of the astronomical term zenith, 

 not to signify the pole. 



VOL. I. 



