6. The Sun appears very bright and large in comparison of the Fixed Stars, because we keep constantly near the Sun, in comparison of our immense distance from the Stars. For, a spectator, placed as near to any Star as we are to the Sun, would see that Star a body as large and bright as the Sun appears to us: and a spectator, as far distant from the Sun as we are from the Stars, would see the Sun as small as we see a Star, divested of all its circumvolving Planets; and would reckon it one of the Stars in numbering them.
The Stars are not enlightened by the Sun.
7. The Stars, being at such immense distances from the Sun, cannot possibly receive from him so strong a light as they seem to have; nor any brightness sufficient to make them visible to us. For the Sun’s rays must be so scattered and dissipated before they reach such remote objects, that they can never be transmitted back to our eyes, so as to render these objects visible by reflection. The Stars therefore shine with their own native and unborrowed lustre, as the Sun does; and since each particular Star, as well as the Sun, is confined to a particular portion of space, ’tis plain that the Stars are of the same nature with the Sun.
They are probably surrounded by Planets.
8. It is no ways probable that the Almighty, who always acts with infinite wisdom and does nothing in vain, should create so many glorious Suns, fit for so many important purposes, and place them at such distances from one another, without proper objects near enough to be benefited by their influences. Whoever imagines they were created only to give a faint glimmering light to the inhabitants of this Globe, must have a very superficial knowledge of Astronomy, and a mean opinion of the Divine Wisdom: since, by an infinitely less exertion of creating power, the Deity could have given our Earth much more light by one single additional Moon.
9. Instead then of one Sun and one World only in the Universe, as the unskilful in Astronomy imagine, that Science discovers to us such an inconceivable number of Suns, Systems, and Worlds, dispersed through boundless Space, that if our Sun, with all the Planets, Moons, and Comets belonging to it were annihilated, they would be no more missed out of the Creation than a grain of sand from the sea-shore. The space they possess being comparatively so small, that it would scarce be a sensible blank in the Universe; although Saturn, the outermost of our planets, revolves about the Sun in an Orbit of 4884 millions of miles in circumference, and some of our Comets make excursions upwards of ten thousand millions of miles beyond Saturn’s Orbit; and yet, at that amazing distance, they are incomparably nearer to the Sun than to any of the Stars; as is evident from their keeping clear of the attractive Power of all the Stars, and returning periodically by virtue of the Sun’s attraction.
The stellar Planets may be habitable.
10. From what we know of our own System it may be reasonably concluded that all the rest are with equal wisdom contrived, situated, and provided with accommodations for rational inhabitants. Let us therefore take a survey of the System to which we belong; the only one accessible to us; and from thence we shall be the better enabled to judge of the nature and end of the other Systems of the Universe. For although there is almost an infinite variety in all the parts of the Creation which we have opportunities of examining; yet there is a general analogy running through and connecting all the parts into one scheme, one design, one whole!
As our Solar Planets are.
11. And then, to an attentive considerer, it will appear highly probable, that the Planets of our System, together with their attendants called Satellites or Moons, are much of the same nature with our Earth, and destined for the like purposes. For, they are solid opaque Globes, capable of supporting animals and vegetables. Some of them are bigger, some less, and some much about the size of our Earth. They all circulate round the Sun, as the Earth does, in a shorter or longer time according to their respective distances from him: and have, where it would not be inconvenient, regular returns of summer and winter, spring and autumn. They have warmer and colder climates, as the various productions of our Earth require: and, in such as afford a possibility of discovering it, we observe a regular motion round their Axes like that of our Earth, causing an alternate return of day and night; which is necessary for labour, rest, and vegetation, and that all parts of their surfaces may be exposed to the rays of the Sun.