184 THE HAMBURG ACCOUNT OF WRIGHT*S THEORY. 



Ancients concerning the Sun and Stars" Mr. Wright here 

 shows that the stars are not only "light bodies" like the 

 sun, but are also actually so many suns which all show 

 the same effects of heat and gravity in regular order 

 through the whole visible creation. He first remarks that 

 the burning-glass has shown, beyond all question, "that 

 the sun is a vast body of blazing matter"; and thereafter 

 he endeavours to prove that the stars are of a similar 

 nature by the following considerations : First, every visible 

 thing of any determinate magnitude may be reduced to 

 the appearance of a physical point, if the eye of the 

 person who looks to it is brought in the finite sphere of 

 vision to a proper distance from it ; and certainly " they 

 are no other than vast globes of blazing matter, all 

 undoubtedly shining by their own native light." But in 

 order that it may not be objected that the distance of 

 the stars may be generally less than is believed, and that 

 they might therefore have their light from the sun or 

 other radiating body, Mr. Wright proves that this objec- 

 tion is altogether groundless, and to reach this position 

 he first of all removes the following great deception of 

 vision. " Most people," he says, " are too apt to think 

 originally that, as the heavens appear to be a vast concave 

 hemisphere, that the stars must of course, as of conse- 

 quence, be fixed there, like so many radiant studs of 

 fire of various magnitudes ; and take it for granted, chiefly 

 designed for no other purpose than to deck and adorn 

 the canopy of our night." This idea, says the author, 

 was adopted by many of the ancients, whose opinions he 

 quotes ; and thereafter he proves that, as these bodies 

 have no sensible parallax, their distance is too great to 

 be capable of being determined by the greatest perfection 

 of human art. He then proceeds to show that the light 

 of the fixed stars is native to them. " All objects," he 

 says, " within the sensible sphere of the sun's attraction 

 or activity, are in some measure magnified by a good 

 telescope. But the stars are all placed so far without it 

 that the best glasses has (sic) no other effect upon them 

 than making them appear more vivid or lively ; but all 

 innate opaque bodies, reflecting only a borrowed light 

 from some primary one, contrary to this property, are all 

 observed to lose their light in the same proportion as 



