When bodies are at such a distance from each other as the earth and the sun, a spectator on either would project the other body upon the concave sphere of the heavens, always seeing it on the opposite side of a great circle one hundred and eighty degrees from himself. Recollect that the path in which the earth moves round the sun is called the ecliptic. We are not to conceive of this, or of any other celestial circle, as having any real, palpable existence, any more than the path of a bird through the sky. You will perhaps think it quite superfluous for me to remind you of this; but, from the habit of seeing the orbits of the heavenly bodies represented in diagrams and orreries, by palpable lines and circles, we are apt inadvertently to acquire the notion, that the orbits of the planets, and other representations of the artificial sphere, have a real, palpable existence in Nature; whereas, they denote the places where mere geometrical or imaginary lines run. You might have expected to see an orrery, exhibiting a view of the sun and planets, with their various motions, particularly described in my Letter on astronomical instruments and apparatus. I must acknowledge, that I entertain a very low opinion of the utility of even the best orreries, and I cannot recommend them as auxiliaries in the study of astronomy. The numerous appendages usually connected with them, some to support them in a proper position, and some to communicate to them the requisite motions, enter into the ideas which the learner forms respecting the machinery of the heavens; and it costs much labor afterwards to divest the mind of such erroneous impressions. Astronomy can be exhibited much more clearly and beautifully to the mental eye than to the visual organ. It is much easier to conceive of the sun existing in boundless space, and of the earth as moving around him at a great distance, the mind having nothing in view but simply these two bodies, than it is, in an orrery, to contemplate the motion of a ball representing the earth, carried by a complicated apparatus of wheels around another ball, supported by a cylinder or wire, to represent the sun. I would advise you, whenever it is practicable, to think how things are in Nature, rather than how they are represented by art. The machinery of the heavens is much simpler than that of an orrery.