BOOK II.] History of Nature. 59 



CHAPTER XXI. 

 The Distances of the Planets. 



MANY have endeavoured to find out the Distance and 

 Elevation of the Planets from the Earth, and have set down 

 in Writing, that the Sun is distant from the Moon eighteen 

 Degrees, as the Moon is also from the Earth. But Pytha- 

 goras, a Man of much Sagacity, hath collected, that there 

 are 126,000 Stadia 1 from the Earth to the Moon, and a 

 double Distance from her to the Sun, and from thence to the 

 twelve Signs three Times so much. Of which Opinion was 

 also our countryman, Gallus Sulpitius. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

 Of the Music of the Planets. 



BUT Pythagoras at the same Time uses the Terms of 

 Music, by calling the Space between the Earth and the 

 Moon a Tone ; saying, that from her to Mercury is Half a 

 Tone : and from him to Venus about the same Space. But 

 from her to the Sun so much and a Half more : but from the 

 Sun to Mars a Tone, that is to say, as much as from the 

 Earth to the Moon. From him to Jupiter Haifa Tone: 

 likewise from him to Saturn Half a Tone : and so from 

 thence to the Zodiac so much and a Half more. Thus are 

 composed seven Tunes, which Harmony they call Diapason; 

 that is to say, the Universality of Consent. In this, Saturn 

 rnoveth by the Doric Tune ; Mercury by Phthongus, Jupiter 

 by the Phrygian, and the Rest likewise : a Subtlety more 

 pleasant than needful 2 . 



1 The Stadium differed in different countries ; but the standard may 

 be fixed at a furlong ; as may be seen in chapter xxiii. One hundred and 

 twenty-five paces make a stadium. In the larger numbers, therefore, it 

 has been sometimes judged best to translate the equivalent expressions 

 into miles. Wern. Club. 



2 Ideas of the harmony of creation seem to have entered deeply into 

 the opinions of Pythagoras, on the system of creation, and especially on 



