Chap. 3.] 
ACCOIJNT OP THE WORLD. 
17 
credible swiftness ^ I am not able to say, whether the sound 
caused by the whirling about of so great a mass be excessive, 
and, therefore, far beyond what our ears can perceive, nor, 
indeed, whether the resounding of so many stars, all carried 
along at the same time and revolving in their orbits, may 
not produce a kind of delightful harmony of incredible sweet- 
ness^. To us, who are in the interior, the world appears to 
glide silently along, both by day and by night. 
Various circumstances in nature prove to us, that there 
are impressed on the heavens innumerable figures of animals 
and of all kinds of objects, and that its surface is not per- 
fectly polished like the eggs of birds, as some celebrated 
authors assert^. Tor we find that the seeds of all bodies fall 
down from it, principally into the ocean, and, being mixed 
together, that a variety of monstrous forms are in this way 
frequently produced. And, indeed, this is evident to the eye ; 
for, in one part, we have the figure of a wain, in another of 
a bear, of a bull, and of a letter^ ; while, in the middle of them, 
over our heads, there is a white circle^. 
(4.) With respect to the name, I am influenced by the 
unanimous opinions of all nations. Por what the Grreeks, 
from its being ornamented, have termed koc/xos, we, from its 
perfect and complete elegance, have termed mundus. The 
name coelmt, no doubly, refers to its being engraven, as it 
^ See Ptolemy, uhi supra. 
2 This opinion, which was maintained by Pythagoras, is noticed and 
derided by Aristotle, De Ccelo, Ub. ii. cap. 9. p. "462-3. A brief account 
of Pythagoras' s doctrine on this subject is contained in Enfield's Philo- 
sophy, i. 386. 
3 Pliny probably here refers to the opinion which Cicero puts into the 
mouth of one of the interlocutors in his treatise De Nat. Deor. ii. 47, 
" Quid enim pulchrius ea figura, quae sola omnes ahas figuras complexa 
continet, quseque nihil asperitatis habere, nihil oiFensionis potest, nihil 
incisum anguhs, nihil anffactibus, nihil eminens, nihil lacunosum ? " 
^ Theletter A, in the constellation of the triangle; it is named AeXrwroi^ 
by Aratus, 1. 235 ; also by Manihus, i. 360. We may remark, that, 
except in this one case, the constellations have no visible resemblance to 
the objects of which they bear.the name. 
^ "Locum hunc Phnii de Gralaxia, sive Lactea via, interpretantur omnes 
docti." Alexandre, in Lemaire, i. 227. It may be remarked, that the 
word vertex is here used in the sense of the astronomical term zenith, 
not to signify the pole. 
YOL. I. ■ C 
