Homer. ] But how ridiculous and absurd all these Opinions and Conjectures really are, will easily appear, if we but once consider the Nature of an unbounded Æther, and the amazing Property of infinite Space. This, with what has been said before, will not a little assist your Imagination towards conceiving the Reasonableness of the Notion modern Astronomers are now confirmed in, of their being absolutely so many burning Balls, and which was no doubt, many Years ago, the Opinion of _Manilius_, as is evident from these Lines in his Poem of the Sphere. For how can we the rising Stars conceive A casual Production; or believe Of the chang'd Heav'ns the oft renascent State _Sol's_[R]frequent Births, and his quotidian Fate. Sherburne. And again, in the same Poem: The fiery Stars, and Æther that creates Infinite Orbs, and others dissipates. [Footnote 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,