104 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book 11. 



And this, I think, is truly the philofophy of his Principia^ though 

 I do not know that that ufe has ever been made of it : For though 

 Sir Ifaac was not a philofophcr, and has erred very much, as I have 

 die where fhown, in the account he has given of the caufe of mo- 

 tion, he was no doubt an excellent mathematician and aftronomer. 



What I have faid, with refped to our folar fyftem, may fuffice 

 in a work of this kind. But there is no reafon to believe that fuch 

 an hoft of fixed ftars is merely for the purpofe of adorning our night- 

 fky ; but on the contrary, from analogy, our only rule of judging 

 in fuch cafes, there is the greatelt reafon to think that they are all 

 funs, having each their attendant planets, and making fo many dif- 

 ferent folar lyftems, all parts of the grand fyftem of fyftems, the 

 univerfe, and which, fome way or another, muft be connedted 

 with our folar fyftem : And the late Dr Wilfon of Glafgow has 

 imagined one way in which they may be connedled : For he fup- 

 pofes that there is a centre of the univerfe, as well as of our ibiar 

 fyftem ; and that round this centre, (be it fome greateft of all funs, 

 or only a central point), all the feveral fyftems, of which the uni- 

 verfe is compofed, are moved. The thought is grand and alto- 

 gether new, and, if we may judge of what is unknown by what is 

 known, very likely to be true. 



CHAP. 



