Chap. 4.] ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD. 19 



the middle of space. These are mutually hound together, the 

 lighter being restrained by the heavier, so that they cannot 

 fly off ; while, on the contrary, from the lighter tending up- 

 wards, the hea^der are so suspended, that they cannot fall 

 down. Thus, by an equal tendency in an opposite directioi;, 

 each of them remains in its appropriate place, bound together 

 by the never-ceasing revolution of the world, which always 

 turning on itself, the earth falls to the lowest part and is in 

 the middle of the whole, while it remains suspended in the 

 centre', and, as it were, balancing this centre, in which it is 

 suspended. So that it alone remains immoveable, whilst all 

 things revolve round it, being connected with every other 

 part, whilst they all rest upon it. 



(6.) Between this body and the heavens there are sus- 

 pended, in this aerial spirit, seven stars^, separated by determi- 

 nate spaces, which, on account of their motion, we call wander- 



* " universi cardine." " Rerolutionis, ut aiunt, centre. Idem Plinius, 

 hoc ipso libro, cap. 64, terram coeli cardinem esse dicit ; " Alexandre, in 

 Lem. i. 228. On tliis subject I may refer to Ptolemy, Magn. Const, 

 lib. i. cap. 3, 4, 6. See also Apuleius, near the commencement of his 

 treatise De Mundo. 



2 " Sidera." The word sidus is used, in most cases, for one of the 

 heavenly bodies generally, sometimes for what we term a constellation, 

 a particular assemblage of them, and sometimes specially for an individual 

 star. ManiUus employs the word in all these senses, as will appear by 

 the three following passages respectively ; the first taken from the open- 

 ing of his poem, 



" Carmine divinas artes, et conscia fati 

 Sidera . . . . " 



The second, " Hsec igitur texunt sequah sidera tractu 



Ignibus in varias ccelum laqueantia formas." i. 275, 276. 



The tliird " . . . . pectus, fulgenti sidere clarius ; " L 356. 



In the Fasti of Ovid, we have examples of the two latter of these 

 significations : — 



"Ex Ariadnseo sidere nosse potes ;" v. 346. 



" Et canis (Icariima dicunt) quo sidere note 

 Tosta sitit tellus ; " iv. 939, 940. 



Lucretius appears always to employ the term in the general sense. J. 

 Obsequens appHes the word sidus to a meteor ; " sidus ingens coelo 

 demissum," cap. 16. In a subsequent part of this book, chap. 18 et seq.^ 

 our author more particularly restricts the term sidus to the planets. 



c2 



