For what can be said on the nature of the sun but that it is a body of prodigious volume, an enormous mass of matter penetrated by fire, which appears to subsist without aliment, and which resembles a metal or a solid body in incandescence? And from whence can this constant state of incandescence, this continually renewed production of fire proceed, whose consumption does not appear to be supported by any aliment, and whose deperdition is at least insensible, although constant for such a great number of years? Is there, or can there be, any other cause of the production of this permanent fire, but the rapid motion from the strong pressure of all bodies, which revolve round this common heat, and which heats and sets fire to it, like a wheel rapidly turned round its axis? The pressure, which they exercise by virtue of their weight is equivalent to the friction, and even more powerful, because this pressure is a penetrating power, which not only rubs the external surface but all the internal parts of the mass: the rapidity of their motion is so great that the friction acquires a force almost infinite, and consequently sets the whole mass of the axis in a state of incandescence, of light, of heat, and of fire, which hence has no need of aliment to be supported, and which, in spite of the deperdition each day made by the emission of light, may remain for ever without any sensible alteration, other suns rendering as much light to ours as it sends to them, and no part of the smallest atom of fire, or any other matter, being lost in a system where all is attracted. If from this sketch of the great table of the heavens, and in which I have only attempted to represent to myself the proportion of the spaces, and that of the motion of bodies which travel over them; if from this point of view, to which I only raised myself to see how greatly nature must be multiplied in the different regions of the universe, we descend to that proportion of space which we are better acquainted with, and in which the sun exercises its power, we shall discover, that although it governs all bodies therein, it, nevertheless, has not the power of vivifying them, nor even that of supporting life and vegetation.