359 



THE SUN CONSIDERED AS THE CENTRAL BODY. 



THE lantern of the world (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 

 verse* ', 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 Som- 

 nium Scipionis, in chap. x. of the first book de Revolut. 



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

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

 pp. 182, 298: T^S e/i^ux" 1 * peaov TO Trepi TOI/ rf\iov, oiovei 



ov-ra IQV 7rai/To'<?, oOev (fiepovatv aviov KOI ir)V \^f%^i/ 

 ia TravTos ijiceiv TOV <ra>^iaTO? TeTafiev^v airo rwv 

 (This new edition is worthy of notice, since it 



completes the peripatetic views of Adrastus- and many of 



the Platonic dogmas of Dercyllidcs,> 



