859 



THE SUN CONSIDERED AS THE CENTRAL BODY. 



THE lantern of the ivorld (lucerna Mundi), as Copernicus 

 names the Sun, 8 enthroned in the centre, according to Theon 

 of Smyrna, the all-vivifying, pulsating heart of the Uni 

 t-erse', is the primary source of light and of radiating heat-, 

 and the generator of numerous terrestrial, electro-magnetic 

 processes, and indeed of the greater part of the organic- 

 vital activity upon our planet, more especially that of the 

 vegetable kingdom. In considering the expression of solar 

 force, in its widest generality, we find that it gives rise to 

 alterations on the surface of the Earth, partly by gravi- 

 tative attraction, as in the ebb and flow of the ocean (if 

 we except the share taken in the phenomenon by lunar 

 attraction), partly by light and heat-generating transverse 

 vibrations of ether, as in the fructifying admixture of the 

 aerial and aqueous envelopes of our planet, from the con- 

 tact of the atmosphere with the vaporizing fluid element 

 in seas, lakes, and rivers. The solar action operates, more- 



* I have already, in an earlier part of this work (vol ii. 

 p. 688 and note) given the passage imitated from the Sam- 

 mum Scipionis, in chap. x. of the^h'rst book de Revolut. 



4 "The Sun is the heart of the* Universe ;" Theonis Smyr- 

 ncei, Platonici Liber de Astronomia, ed. H. Martin, 1849, 

 pp. 182, 298: rrj<s l/n^v^ia? fj^aov' TO Trepl TOI/ rj\tov, olovel 

 ' ovra TOV 7rav7o<t, oOev (pepovaiv aviov KCLI T^ 



ia Trai/Tos TJKCIV tov ffwfia'ros reTa/uevijv UTTO TICV 

 (This new edition is worthy or' notice, since it 

 completes the peripatetic views of Adrastus, and many of 

 the Platonic dogmas of Dercyllides.) 



