184 ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY. 



that it is alleged as the cause of such appearances, that the 

 heaven is in those places thin, and, so to speak, porous, that 

 is less probable, because a visible diminution and loss of 

 substance could by no means strike our senses from so 

 great a distance, since the rest also of the body of the ether 

 is invisible, and not discernible, except by a comparison 

 with the bodies of the stars. It were perhaps a more pro 

 bable conjecture to consider them as dark spaces occa 

 sioned by want of light; because in that part of heaven 

 there are found fewer stars, just as they are found 

 thicker about the galaxy, so that the one place presents 

 a continuity of light, the other of shade. For in the 

 Antarctic hemisphere the heavenly fires appear to be 

 more distinctly presented than in ours, there being larger 

 stars, though fewer, and wider interstellar spaces. The 

 statements, too, with respect to these spots are scarcely 

 worthy of entire credit, at least no such great pains have 

 been taken in observing, as to authorise us as yet to infer 

 consequences from the observations made. What more 

 affects the present question is, that there may be opaque 

 globes dispersed through ether, which to us are quite im 

 perceptible. For the moon, also, in its first quarter, so far 

 as it is irradiated by the sun, is indeed visible, in its horns, 

 that is, and the thin rim its circular outline, but, at full, not 

 at all, being lost in the general aspect of the rest of ether : 

 and those small wandering satellites discovered by Galileo, 

 if we are to believe the account about Jupiter, are drowned 

 to our view in the ocean of ether like small and indiscer 

 nible islands ; and so those small stars, the combination of 

 which forms the milky way, were they placed dispersedly, 

 each by itself, and not grouped into a body, would cer 

 tainly escape our vision, even as many others do, which 

 sparkle out on clear nights, particularly during winter ; so 

 too the nebulous stars, or perforations in the crib are now, 

 by the telescope, distinctly counted ; and with the help of 

 the same instrument a certain obscuration of spots, shade, 

 and irregularity is visible in the fountain of light itself, I 

 mean the sun. And if nothing else did, assuredly that 

 gradation in respect of light, descending and reaching from 

 the most brilliant bodies to the most dim and dark, leads 

 to the inference and belief that there are orbs wholly opaque. 

 For there seem to be fewer degrees of approximation be 

 tween a nebulous and opaque, than between a bright and 

 a nebulous star. Again, man s vision is manifestly cheated 

 and confined. For whatever lies dispersed in the heaven, 



