205 



an unbounded field for conjecture is here I Bitt 

 what foundation for real knowledge ? 



Just as much do we know of the feebly-shining 

 bodies that move regularly round the sun : of Jupi- 

 ter, Saturn, and other planets. Their revolutions 

 we are acquainted with : but who is able to this 

 day, regularly to demonstrate, either their magnitude 

 or their distance ? Unless he will prove, as is the 

 usual way, the magnitude from the distance, and the 

 .distance from the magnitude : anc| what are Jupiter s 

 Belts ? Can any man tell ] What is Saturn's 

 Ring ? The honest ploughman knows as well as 

 the deepest philosopher. How many satellites) se- 

 condary planets, move round Jupiter or Saturn 7 Are 

 we sure even of their number ? How much less of 

 their nature, size, motions, or distances from the 

 primary ] But what wonder we are so ignorant 

 concerning Saturn's Moons, when we know so little 

 of our own ? For, although some men of genius 

 have not only discovered 



" Rivers and mountains on her spotty globe/' 



but have travelled over the whole hemisphere, wliich 

 is obverted to us, (and why is the same hemisphere 

 always obverted ? What reason can he assigned, 

 *hy we do not see the other hemisphere in its turn ?) 

 have marked out all her seas and contents, with the 

 utmost exactness 3 yea a and carried selenography to 



