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cut at all reaching the kernel of the globe. And what 

 is this globe, of which itself we know so little, to those 

 vsst globes of which we know much less ? For though 

 the former astronomers give us their distances and mag- 

 nitudes as exactly as if they had measured them, yet the 

 latter mathematicians give us reason to doubt of what 

 those have delivered. For since we can observe no pa- 

 rallax in the fixed stars, (nor perhaps in the highest pla- 

 nets) we must still be to seek for a method to measure 

 the distance of those bodies. And not only the Coper- 

 uicar.s make it many hundred thousand miles greater 

 than the Ptolemeans, but Rice) ol us makes it vastly 

 greater than the Copernicans themselves. Nor can we 

 wonder at these huge discrepances (though some amount 

 to many millions of miles) when v>e consider that astro- 

 nomers do not measure the distance of the fixed stars, 

 by their instruments, but each accommodates the distance 

 of them to his peculiar hypothesis. From this uncertainty 

 of the distance of tlie fixed stars, it is easily inferred, that 

 we are not sure of their bulk : no, not even in reference 

 to one another : since it is doubtful whether the different 

 sizes they appear to be of, proceed from an inequality of 

 bulk, or only from an inequality of distance. But besides 

 these, there are divers things relating to the stars, so remote 

 from our knowledge, that they are not even enquired into : 

 such as these, vvhy the number of the stars is neither 

 greater nor less thaa it is? Why so many of them arc so 

 placed, as not to be visible to the naked eye? Why of 

 the visible ones, so many are in one part of the sky, and 

 so few in others ? Why they are not placed in some ci- 

 der, but scattered over the sky, as if it were by chance 1 

 Many questions might be added, as concerning the stars, 

 SD concernirg the interstellar parts: as whether they 

 are empty, save where they are pervaded by light, or 

 - filled with ethereal matter ?, So that our knowledge is 

 much short of what is generally thought. For the earth 

 being but a point, compared to the orb of the sun : 

 which orb itself is but a point in respect of the firma- 

 ment: of how little extent must our knowledge be, 

 which leaves us totally ignorant of so many things 



