THE SUN'S MOTION IN SPACE. 149 



the existing state of knowledge on the subject been attempted, the 

 present sketch will not be without value in further prosecuting 

 the attack on the problem. As to the necessity of reaching the 

 best solution, difference of opinion cannot, of course, exist. 



(1) Giordano Bruno, 158 J/.. — The conception of an indefinitely 

 extended stellar universe, in which the sun and its planetary 

 system is but a single and perhaps insignificant member, is one 

 the world owes to the marvellous intuitions of Giordano Bruno, 

 the immortality of whose memory was doubly assured when his 

 noble mind and indomitable spirit vanished from the world in the 

 flames of martyrdom on the 17th February 1600. "The magnifi- 

 cent stars and resplendent bodies" constituted, according to Bruno, 

 " innumerable systems of worlds not much unlike our own," 1 scat- 

 tered through the ether of a boundless universe, 2 the suns being 

 visible, but the planets invisible 3 through their smallness. 



Copernicus had imagined the centre of the universe, as it were, 

 to be in the sun and immovable. 4 Bruno to whom the sun was 

 merely the father of life 5 for its own system, placed the centres in 

 each star, 6 that is to say, they were centres merely for the systems 

 of bodies about them; there was no general centre/ The innumer- 

 able worlds like ours " throned and sphered amidst the ether " free 

 in space, 8 having the principle of intrinsic motion, attract one 

 another and move by their own inward spiritual power. 9 It is in 



1 . ." questi magnified astri e lampeggianti corpi . . che sembrano 

 e sono innumerabili mondi non molto dissimili a questo." — De la causa r 

 principio et uno, Vol. i., p. 234, Opere di Giordano Bruno. Wagner. 

 Leipsic, 1830. 



2 " In questo modo diciamo esser un infinito, cioe una eterea regione 

 immensa. ne la quale sono innumerabili et infiniti corpi come la terra, 

 la luna et il sole, li quali da noi son chiamati mondi composti di pieno e 

 vacuo ; per che questo spirito, quest'aria, questo etere, non solamente e 

 circa questi corpi, ma ancora penetra dentro tutti, e viene insito in ogui 

 cosa." — De Finfinito uni verso e mondi, Vol. n., p. 34, op. cit. 3 Ibid., p. 52. 



4 See op. cit., Vol. i., p. 163. 5 " Padre di vita." Ibid., p. 51, last line. 



6 De Immenso. Bk. vn., p. 600. See also De Finfinito, Vol. i., p. 163. 



7 Centum et sexaginta articuli ad versus hujus tempestatis mathematicos 

 c 4 x., Art 160. Prague 1588. » Gfrorer 14, p. 159. 



9 See La Cena de le Ceneri. — Opere di Giordano Bruno, Vol. i., pp. 165 

 - 166 etc. Wagner, 1830. 



