Plate XIV.
For in the azure Skies its candid Way
Shines like the dawning Morn, or closing Day.
There are also many more such luminous Spaces to be found in the Heavens of the same Nature with these, which we know to be Stars; in particular the Nebulæ, or cloudy Star in the Præsepe of 36; a cloudy Star in Orion of 21; [AC]a cloudy [AD]Knot not far from this in the same Asterism of 80; in one Degree of the same Constellation 500, and in the whole Form above [AE]2000. All of which are great Confirmations of the Truth of our Assertion, i. e. that this Zone of Light proceeds from an infinite Number of small Stars. Here it will not be amiss to observe, that it has been conjectured, and is strongly suspected, that a proper Number of Rays, meeting from different Directions, become Flame; and that hence it may prove not the Sun's real Body which we daily see, but only his inflamed Atmosphere. I begin to be of Opinion, and I think not without Reason, that the true Magnitude of the Sun is not near what the modern Astronomers have made it; and that it may not possibly be much above two Thirds of what it appears to us; I don't mean that this Expansion of the solar Flame is any Part of that dilated Light mentioned by Sir Isaac Newton, and conceived to be round all light Bodies in general; but you may consider it as not much differing from it, not of an unlike Nature, only greater in Degree, and peculiar to the Sun and Stars, who are all, as has been before in a manner demonstrated to be actually Globes of Fire.
[AC] Vide Galilæo
[AD] Betwixt the Sword and Girdle of Orion.
[AE] Vide Reitha.
This, tho' I presume to call it at present only meer Hypothesis, will in a great measure account for the excessive Changes in the Constitution of our Air and Atmosphere, which we often find very unnatural to the Season; also be a Means perhaps of reconciling the vast Disproportion so very remarkable betwixt the Sun and the lesser Planets, and many other Circumstances in the System of no small Consequence in Astronomy: One of which Particulars you have frequently expressed a great Mistrust and Disapprobation of, as suspecting some kind of a Fallacy in the Computation; and the other is Matter of general Complaint, being by many attributed to a Change in the Direction of the Earth's Axis[AF]; and by some, especially the Vulgar, to too near an Approximation of the Earth to some one of the celestial Bodies. But all this will very naturally be accounted for by the Levity, or expanding Quality of the Sun's circumambient Flame, or Atmosphere; and hence, according to its various State, being more condensed, or rare, we may have Heat or Cold in the greatest Extream, and alternately so, in a perpetual Vicissitude.
[AF] Which, through Ignorance of the true Case, is commonly called a Shock, a Brush, or Shove.