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COMETS 213 



same nature as planets, and to move in similar orbits. 

 He believed also that there were other solar planets 

 which never appeared to us because their position in the 

 heavens precluded their reflecting any of the sun's rays 

 to us : a belief to which the reported eclipses of the 

 sun by occult bodies has given some support. The 

 shape of the comet, with its appendages, was only 

 apparent, Bruno said, and was due to the angle made 

 by the light reflected from its surface. In another 

 reference, however, he compares it with the oblique 

 reflection of light from a mirror, or from the surface 

 of water ; it is the watery matter, the vapours which are 

 drawn out by the warmth of the sun, that give the un- 

 usual reflection. 1 This shows how nearly he approached 

 the modern theory. In the true spirit of the Renais- 

 sance, however, he appealed to the authority of the 

 ancients, of Aeschylus and Hipparchus of Chios, who, 

 according to Aristotle, regarded the comets as planets. 2 

 The comets of the sixteenth century, 3 so far as observed, 

 went wholly against the received view that their orbits 

 must lie within the sphere of the moon, and proved that 

 the substance of bodies beyond that sphere was the same 

 as the elementary substance of the earth, as well as that 

 there was penetrable space beyond. Both of these to 

 Bruno were important consequences. Still greater, how- 

 ever, was their importance for humanity, in removing the 

 grounds of the terror which comets and other heavenly 

 wonders had hitherto inspired. " There are some," said 

 Bruno, " who rest their faith in a virtue above and beyond 

 nature, saying that God, who is above nature, creates 

 these appearances in the heavens in order to signify 

 something to us : as if those were not better, nay the 



1 De Imm. bk. vi. ch. 19. 2 Op. Lat. i. 2. p. 230. 



3 1531, 1532, 1572, 1577, 1585. (Bk. v. chs. 9 and 13.) 



