1 88 THE HAMBURG ACCOUNT OF WRIGHT'S THEORY. 



wonder cease?" He further says: "Perhaps you may 

 expect that I should here give you my conjectures of 

 what sort of beings may be supposed to reside in the Ens 

 primum, or Sedes beatorum, of the known universe, . . . 

 but this is a task above the human capacity, or is the pure 

 province of religion alone; the business of a revelation 

 rather than reason to discover. 



THE SIXTH LETTER is entitled : " Of general motion 

 amongst the stars, the plurality of systems, and innumerability 

 of worlds" In this letter the author endeavours to prove 

 that all the stars are in motion, and he ascribes the 

 alteration in the obliquity of the ecliptic to the motion 

 of the sun round the centre of the universe. 



THE SEVENTH LETTER is entitled : " The Hypotheses 

 or Theory fully explained and demonstrated, proving the 

 Siderial Creation to be finite" After a digression on the 

 utility of astronomy, the author endeavours to solve the 

 phenomena of the Milky Way in the following manner : 

 "Let us imagine a vast infinite gulf or medium, every 

 way extended like a plane, and enclosed between two 

 surfaces, nearly even on both sides, but of such depth or 

 thickness as to occupy a space equal to the double radius 

 or diameter of the visible creation, that is, to take in one 

 of the smallest stars each way from the middle station, 

 perpendicular to the plane's direction, and as near as 

 possible according to our idea of their true distance. 

 But to bring this image a little lower and as near as 

 possible level to every capacity (I mean such as cannot 

 conceive this kind of continued zodiac), let us suppose 

 the whole frame of nature in the form of an artificial 

 horizon of a globe. I don't mean to affirm that it really 

 is so in fact, but only state the question thus to help 

 your imagination to conceive more aptly what I would 

 explain. Plate xxm. will then represent a just section 

 of it. 1 Now in this space let us imagine all the stars 

 scattered promiscuously, but at such an adjusted distance 

 from one another as to fill up the whole medium with 



1 The relative positions of the letters in this diagram referred to may 

 be indicated. The whole space or medium contained within the 

 section BFGCD is represented as filled with large and small stars, and 

 lines are drawn towards and through them in the visual directions, 

 from A to B, F, H, G, and E respectively. Tr. 



