261 



corn! will give the distance very considerably greater or 

 less than the true." 



R. 2. In p. 143, you tell us. The whole para- 

 graph runs thus. " It is now almost universally sup- 

 posed, that the moon is just like the earth, having moun- 

 tains and valleys, seas with islands, peninsulas, and pro- 

 montories, with a changeable atmosphere, wherein va- 

 pours and exhalations rise and fall. Arid hence it is 

 generally inferred, that she is inhabited like the earth, 

 and by parity of reason, that all the other planets, as 

 r, ell as the earth and moon, have their respective inhabit- 

 ants." (I take this to be the very strength of the 

 cause. It was this consideration chiefly, which induced 

 me to think for many years, that all the planets were in- 

 habited.) " But after all comes-- the celebrated Mr. 

 Huygeos, and brings strong reasons why the moon is not, 

 and cannot be inhabited at all, nor any secondary planet 

 whatever. Then" (if the first supposition sinks, on which 

 all the rest are built) " I doubt we shall never prove 

 that the primary are. ' And so the whole hypothesis, of 

 innumerable suns and worlds moving round them, 

 vanishes into air." 



In order to prove that there are innumerable suns, 

 you say, 1. "It is found by observations on the parallax 

 of the earth's orbit, that a fixed star is ten thousand 

 times farther from the sun than we are." 



I can build nothing on these observations, till paral- 

 laxes can be taken with greater certainty than they are 

 at present. Therefore I still want proof, that any one 

 fixed star is one thousand times farther from the suu than 

 we are. 



2. *< They are fiery bodies." I suppose they are. 

 But this cannot be proved from their distance, till that 

 distance itself is proved. 



3. " It is demonstrable, that Sirius is as big as the sun*"" 

 Demonstrate it who can. 



