------------------------------------------------------------------------ [322] “And in the Galaxy this heaven has a close resemblance to Metaphysics. Wherefore it must be known that the Philosophers have had different opinions about this Galaxy. For the Pythagoreans affirmed that the sun at one time wandered in its course, and in passing through other regions not suited to sustain its heat, set on fire the place through which it passed; and so these traces of the conflagration remain there. And I believe that they were influenced by the fable of Phaëton, which Ovid tells at the beginning of the second book of the _Metamorphoses_. Others (as for instance Anaxagoras and Democritus) said that the Galaxy was the light of the sun reflected in that region. And these opinions they confirmed by demonstrative reasons. What Aristotle may have said about it cannot be accurately known, because the two translations give different accounts of his opinion. And I think that any mistake may have been due to the translators, for in the _New Translation_ he is made to say that the Galaxy is a congregation, under the stars of this part of the heaven, of the vapours which are always being attracted by them; and this opinion does not appear to be right. In the _Old Translation_ he says that the Galaxy is nothing but a multitude of fixed stars in that region, stars so small that they are not separately visible from our earth, but the appearance of whiteness which we call the Galaxy is due to them. [And it may be that the heaven in that part is more dense, and therefore retains and reproduces that light] and this opinion Avicenna and Ptolemy appear to share with Aristotle. Therefore, since the Galaxy is an effect of those stars which cannot be perceived except so far as we apprehend these things by their effect, and since Metaphysics treats of primal substances which in the same way we cannot apprehend except by their effects, it is plain that there is a close resemblance between the starry heaven and Metaphysics.” _Conv._ II. xv. 44-86. (_Jackson_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------