Anaximander affirms that the circle of the moon is nineteen times bigger
than the earth, and resembles the sun, its orb being full of fire;
and it suffers an eclipse when the wheel makes a revolution,--which he
describes by the divers turnings of a chariot-wheel, in the midst of it
there being a hollow nave replenished with fire, which hath but one way
of expiration. Xenophanes, that it is a condensed cloud. The Stoics,
that it is mixed of fire and air. Plato, that it is a body of the
greatest part fiery. Anaxagoras and Democritus, that it is a solid,
condensed, and fiery body, in which there are flat countries, mountains,
and valleys. Heraclitus, that it is an earth covered with a bright
cloud. Pythagoras, that the body of the moon was of a nature resembling
a mirror.
CHAPTER XXVI. OF THE SIZE OF THE MOON.
The Stoics declare, that in magnitude it exceeds the earth, just as the
sun itself doth. Parmenides, that it is equal to the sun, from whom it
receives its light.
CHAPTER XXVII. OF THE FIGURE OF THE MOON.
The Stoics believe that it is of the same figure with the sun,
spherical. Empedocles, that the figure of it resembles a quoit.
Heraclitus, a boat. Others, a cylinder.
CHAPTER XXVIII. FROM WHENCE IS IT THAT THE MOON RECEIVES HER LIGHT?
Anaximander thinks that she gives light to herself, but it is very
slender and faint. Antiphon, that the moon shines by its own proper
light; but when it absconds itself, the solar beams darting on it
obscure it. Thus it naturally happens, that a more vehement light puts
out a weaker; the same is seen in other stars. Thales and his followers,
that the moon borrows all her light of the sun. Heraclitus, that the
sun and moon are after the same manner affected; in their configurations
both are shaped like boats, and are made conspicuous to us by receiving
their light from moist exhalations. The sun appears to us more
refulgent, by reason it is moved in a clearer and purer air; the moon
appears more duskish, it being carried in an air more troubled and
gross.
CHAPTER XXIX. OF THE ECLIPSE OF THE MOON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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