PRINCIPLES OF THINGS. 



43 



talline heavens ; the eighth, the starry sphere, or heavens ; and the remaining 

 seven deriving their names from, and being appropriated to, the different re- 

 vohitions of the different planets, as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo or the sun, 

 Venus, Mercury, and Diana or the moon : the earth, forming the centre of the 

 whole, being an imperfect sphere, with a larger proportion of matter at the 

 equator; on which account the earth was conceived to turn on her axis in a 

 rocking motion, revolving round the axis of the ecliptic, and making the stars 

 appear to shift their places at the rate of about one degree in seventy-two 

 years. According to which calculation, all of them will appear to perform a 

 complete revolution in the spa(-e of 25,920 years, and, consequently, to return 

 to the precise situation they occupied at the commencement of such period. 

 This period was hence denominated the annus magnus, or great year, and 

 not unfrequently the platonic year, as the same kind of revolution was in 

 some measure taught also by Plato. 



The motory power, thus impressed by the intelligent moving principle, not 

 voluntarily but by necessity, upon the different heavenly spheres, and finally 

 upon the earth, and produc^tive of that catenation of effects which is equally 

 without beginning and without end, Aristotle denominated nature, and thus 

 furnished us with a word, which has for ages been so extensively made use of, 

 that, though there is nothing in all language more imprecise, there is nothing we 

 could spare with more inconvenience. The same term, indeed, is occasionally 

 employed by Plato, but in a sense still less definite if possible, and at the 

 same time still less comprehensive. 



On the revival of literature, this theory, together with the other branches 

 of Peripatetic science, was chiefly restored and studied ; and continued, 

 indeed, to be generally adhered to for upwards of a century after the publi- 

 cation of the Copernican system ; which is well known to have at first ex- 

 perienced but a very cold and inhospitable reception from the literary world. 

 And it is hence this theory that is principally adverted to and described in the 

 productions of all the early poets as well as philosophers of every part of 

 modern Europe. And so complete was the triumph of the Peripatetic school 

 in all its doctrines throughout Christendom, at this period, that Melancthon 

 makes it a matter of complaint that, even in the sacred assemblies, parts of 

 the writings of Aristotle were read to the people instead of the Gospel. 

 Even Milton himself, though born considerably more than a century after 

 Copernicus, wavers as to the propriety of adopting his hypothesis of the 

 heavens, and hence, in his Paradise Lost,* leaves it doubtful which of the 

 two, the new or the old, ought to be preferred. The best and most splendid 

 description of the Aristotelian theory that I have ever met with is contained in 

 the Lusiad of Camoens: the whole is too long for quotation, but 1 may venture to 

 affirm, that you will be pleased with the following lines from Mr. Mickel's very 

 spirited version of the Portuguese bard, as delineating the different heavenly 

 spheres that were supposed, as I have already observed, to lie one within 

 another, like the different tunics of an onion ; — 



These spheres behold : the first in wide embrace 

 Surrounds the lesser orbs of various face ; 

 The EMPYREAN this, the holiest heaven, 

 N To the pure spirits of the blest is given : 



No mortal eye its splendid rays may bear, 

 No mortal bosom feel the raptures there. 

 The earth, in all her summer pride array'd, 

 To this might seem a dark sepulchral shade. 

 Unmov'd it stands. — Within its shining frame, 

 In motion swifter than the lightning's flame, 

 Swifter than sight the moving parts may spy, 

 Another sphere whirls round its rapid sky : 

 Hence motion darts its force, impulsive draws, 

 And on the other orbs impresses laws.f 



These hypotheses are abstruse, and perhaps ill calculated to afford amuse- 

 ment ; but in a course of physical study they ought by no means to be over- 



♦ Book vuL 



t Book X. p. 443, 4to. 1776. 



