186 ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY. 



from their quantity, and their position or collocation. For 

 the bulkier masses, that is the homogeneous bodies, which 

 are combined in a body of such quantity as to have analogy 

 to the whole of the universe, acquire cosmical properties, 

 which are no where found in their parts. For the ocean, 

 which is the greatest collection of water, ebbs and flows, 

 but marshes and lakes not at all. So in like manner the 

 whole earth remains pendent, a portion of the earth falls. 

 And the position of a body is of great importance, both in 

 its bulkier and smaller portions, on account of the proximity 

 or contiguity of bodies friendly and hostile. Much more, 

 then, must a diversity of action obtain between our fire and 

 that of the stars, because it differs from it not only in the 

 quantity and composition, but also in some degree in sub 

 stance. For the fire of the stars is pure, uncompounded, 

 and native : whereas ours is degenerate, crippled by its fall 

 like Vulcan precipitated to earth. For if one observe it, 

 we have fire among us as if out of its place, flickering, sur 

 rounded with its contraries, poor, and, as it were, begging 

 the alms of nourishment to preserve it, and hastening to 

 disappear. But in heaven fire exists in its true state, dis 

 severed from the encroachment of its contrary, and per 

 forming freely, and without disturbance, its appropriate 

 actions. Therefore it was not at all necessary for Patricius, 

 in order to save the pyramidal form of flame as found 

 among us, to insinuate that the higher part of a star might 

 be pyramidal, though the other part, which is visible to us, 

 be globular. For the pyramidal form of fire is incidental 

 to it from the pressure and confinement of the air. There 

 fore, in flame, the base is fuller, the apex pointed, but in 

 smoke the lower part narrow, the top broadened, and like 

 an inverted pyramid : because air expands to smoke, but 

 compresses fire. It is, therefore, consistent that flame 

 among us should be pyramidal, in heaven globose. In like 

 manner flame among us is a shortlived body, in ether steady 

 and lasting. But even among us flame would remain and 

 subsist in its own form, were it not destroyed by the sur 

 rounding substances, which is very apparent in the larger 

 sort of flames. For every portion of flame placed in the 

 midst of flame perishes not, but remains unextinguished, 

 the same in quantity, and rapidly ascending heavenwards ; 

 but on the sides the pressure takes effect, and from them 

 begins the process of extinction. One way of demonstrat 

 ing this fact, I mean the interior flame remaining in a 

 spherical figure, and the exterior gradually vanishing and 



