Sol's [R]frequent Births, and his quotidian Fate.
And again, in the same Poem:
The fiery Stars, and Æther that creates
Infinite Orbs, and others dissipates.
[R] Xenophanes believed the Stars to be no other than Clouds set on Fire, quenched in the Day-time, and rekindled in the Night.
Zoroaster, the first of all Philosophers we read of who studied the Stars, is reported to have believed them of a fiery Nature. Empedocles judged them to be Fire æthereal, struck forth in its Secretion, and blazing in the upper Regions. Plato thought them Fire, with the Mixture of other Elements as Cements. Heraclides Worlds by themselves, of Earth, Air, and Fire; and Aristotle, simple Bodies of the Substance of Heaven, but more condensed.
But that I may not take up too much of your Time with Opinions that has been imbibed in the Infancy of Astronomy, and has long ago been exploded, I shall attempt but one Thing more to confirm your Sentiments in this new Doctrine.
First, that the Stars are all at a Distance, not to be determined by the utmost Perfection of human Art, is manifest from their having very little, or no sensible [S]Parallax; and consequently, that any one of them is absolutely bigger or less than another, from the simple Laws of Opticks, cannot possibly come under our Observation to be ascertained; but that they all of them may be nearly of the same Size or Solidity, is as impossible, with any Shew of Reason to deny, since it is a known Principle in Geometry, that all visible Objects naturally diminish, as has been said before, or are magnified in a certain Proportion to their Distance from the Eye; and hence we may conclude, and not without Reason in its strongest Light to support us, that the smallest Stars, to the very least Denomination, are only removed respectively more distant from the Observer's Station; and that at least this we may be certain of, that they are all together undoubtedly an Infinity of like Bodies, distributed either promiscuously, or in some regular Order throughout the mundane Space: And, as Marino says,
Resplendent Sparks of the first Fire!
In which the Beauty we admire,