Chap. 4.] 
ACCOTOT OE THE WOULD. 
19 
the middle of space. These are mutually bound 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 heavier are so suspended, that they cannot fall 
down. Thus, by an equal tendency in an opposite direction, 
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." " Revolutionis, ut aiunt, centre. Idem Plinius, 
hoc ipso libro, cap. 64, terrain 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 Mnndo. 
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. Manihus employs the word in all these senses, as will appear by 
the three following passages respectively 5 the first taken from the open- 
ing of his poem, 
" Carmine divinas artes, et conscia fati 
Sidera . . . . " 
The second, " Hsec igitur texunt sequali sidera tractu 
Ignibus in varias coelum laqueantia formas." i. 275, 276. 
The third " . . . . pectus, fulgenti sidere clarius j " i. 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 (Icarium dicunt) quo sidere no to 
Tosta sitit teUus ; " 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. 
c 2 
