of the Sun and fixed Stars . 63 
What has been said enables us to come to some very im- 
portant conclusions, by remarking, that this way of consider- 
ing the sun and its atmosphere, removes the great dissimilarity 
we have hitherto been used to find between its condition and 
that of the rest of the great bodies of the solar system. 
The sun, .viewed in this light, appears to be nothing else 
than a very eminent, large, and lucid planet, evidently the 
first, or in strictness of speaking, the only primary one of our 
system ; all others being truly secondary to it. Its similarity 
to the other globes of the solar system with regard to its soli- 
dity, its atmosphere, and its diversified surface ; the rotation 
upon its axis, and the fall of heavy bodies, leads us on to sup- 
pose that it is most probably also inhabited, like the rest of the 
planets, by beings whose organs are adapted to the peculiar 
circumstances of that vast globe. 
Whatever fanciful poets might say, in making the sun the 
abode of blessed spirits, or angry moralists devise, in pointing 
it out as a fit place for the punishment of the wicked, it does 
not appear that they had any other foundation for their asser- 
tions than mere opinion and vague surmise ; but now I think 
myself authorized, upon astronomical principles, to propose the 
sun as an inhabitable world, and am persuaded that the fore- 
going observations, with the conclusions 1 have drawn from 
them, are fully sufficient to answer every objection that may 
be made against it. 
It may, however, not be amiss to remove a certain difficulty, 
which arises from the effect of the sun's rays upon our globe. 
The heat which is here, at the distance of 95 millions of miles, 
produced by these rays, is so considerable, that it may be ob- 
jected, that the surface of the globe of the sun itself must be 
scorched up beyond all conception. 
