First, it is allowed, as I have endeavoured to shew, by all modern Philosophers, that the Sun and Stars are all of the same or like Nature; consequently, that the Stars are all Suns, and that the Sun himself is a Star.
Plate XVII.
PLATE XVII.
Represents a kind of perspective View of the visible Creation, wherein A represents the System of our Sun, B, that supposed round Syrius, and C, the Region about Rigel. The rest is a promiscuous Disposition of all the Variety of other Systems within our finite Vision, as they are supposed to be posited behind one another, in the infinite Space, and round every visible Star. That round every Star then we may justly conjecture a similar System of Bodies, governed by the same Laws and Principles with this our solar one, though to us at the Earth for very good Reasons invisible[AK]. Secondly,
[AK] Anaximines believed the Stars to be of a fiery Nature; and that there were certain terrestrial Bodies that are not seen by us, carried together round them. Stob. Ecl. Phys. cap. 25. Pythagoras affirmed, that every Star is a World, containing Earth, Air, and Æther.
The Sun is also observed to have a Motion round his own Axis in about twenty-five Days. Now, since all the other [AL] Planets which move in Orbits round him, and are within our Observation, are found to have a like Rotation round their Axis, may we not as reasonably imagine, that that Power which was able to give the Sun a Motion round his Axis, could and would at the same time, with adequate Ease, give him also an orbitular one? and why not, since no progressive Mutability can either take from, or disturb the boundless Property of an Infinity; and besides, seeing to imagine him at rest, is to impose such an unnatural Stagnation upon the eternal Faculty, quite repugnant to that imparable Power which we suppose stands in need of neither Sleep nor Rest?
[AL] Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, the Earth, Moon, and Mercury.
'Tis true, the Sun may be said to be the Governor of all those Bodies round him; but how? no otherwise than he himself may be governed by a superior Agent, or a still more active Force; and methinks it is not a little absurd to suppose he is not, since we have discovered by undoubted Observations, that the same gravitating Power is common to all; and that the Stars themselves are subject to no other Direction than that which moves the whole Machine of Nature.
Thirdly, From many Observations of the polar Points, and the Obliquity of the Earth's Equator to the Plane of her solar Orbit compared together, the Sun is very justly suspected to have changed his sidereal Situation; and this must either arise from a Change in the Position of the Earth's diurnal Axis, or from a Removal of the Sun himself, out of the primitive Plane of the Orbis Magnus. I believe you are so much of a Mathematician, as to know that if either of these Facts be allowed, the Consequence I want will follow. I shall not therefore here enter into any farther Dispute about it; but I think it will be necessary to submit some Observations to your Consideration, that may convince you that there is a Motion somewhere to be thus discovered, and whether in the Sun, or in the Stars, or in both, I leave to your own Determination, but to assist your Imagination, I refer you to