The fixed Stars are luminous bodies like the Sun.
It is evident from hence, that all the Stars are luminous bodies, and shine with their own proper and native light, else they could not be seen at such a great distance. For the Satellites of Jupiter and Saturn, tho’ they appear under considerable angles through good telescopes, yet are altogether invisible to the naked eye.
The distance from us to the Sun is nothing in comparison of the vast distance of the fixed Stars.
Although the distance betwixt us and the Sun is vastly large, when compared to the diameter of the Earth, yet it is nothing when compared with the prodigious distance of the fixed Stars; for the whole diameter of the Earth’s annual orbit, appears from the nearest fixed Star no bigger than a point, and the fixed Stars are at least 100,000 times farther from us than we are from the Sun; as may be demonstrated from the observation of those who have endeavoured to find the Parallax of the Earth’s annual Orb, or the angle under which the Earth’s orbit appears from the fixed Stars.
As to appearance, the Earth may be consider’d as being the center of the Heavens.
Hence it follows, that tho’ we approach nearer to some fixed Stars at one time of the year than we do at the opposite, and that by the whole length of the diameter of the Earth’s orbit; yet this distance being so small in comparison with the distance of the fixed Stars, their magnitudes or positions cannot thereby be sensibly altered; therefore we may always, without error, suppose ourselves to be in the same center of the Heavens, since we always have the same visible prospect of the Stars without any alteration.
The fixed Stars are Suns.
If a spectator was placed as near to any fixed Star, as we are to the Sun, he would there observe a body as big, and every way like, as the Sun appears to us: and our Sun would appear to him no bigger than a fixed Star: and undoubtedly he would reckon the Sun as one of them in numbering the Stars. Wherefore since the Sun differeth nothing from a fixed Star, the fixed Stars may be reckoned so many Suns.
The fixed Stars are at vast distance from each other.
It is not reasonable to suppose that all the fixed Stars are placed at the same distance from us; but it is more probable that they are every where interspersed thro’ the vast indefinite space of the universe; and that there may be as great a distance betwixt any two of them, as there is betwixt our Sun and the nearest fixed Star. Hence it follows, why they appear to us of different magnitudes, not because they really are so, but because they are at different distances from us; those that are nearest excelling in brightness and lustre those that are most remote, who give a fainter light, and appear smaller to the eye.