Here again too I know Kepler is of another Opinion in his Epitome of Copernicus’s Syſtem, that we mention’d above. For tho’ he agrees with us, that the Stars are diffus’d through all the vaſt Expanſe of the Heavens, yet he cannot allow that they have as large an empty Space about them as our Sun has. For then ’twas his Opinion, we ſhould ſee but very few, and thoſe of very different Magnitudes: For, ſeeing the largeſt of all appear ſo ſmall to us, that we can ſcarce obſerve or meaſure them with our beſt Inſtruments; how muſt thoſe appear that are three or four times farther from us? Why, ſuppoſing them no larger than theſe, they muſt ſeem three or four times leſs, and ſo on ’till a little farther they will not be to be ſeen at all: Thus we ſhall have the ſight of but very few Stars, and thoſe very different one from another; Whereas we have above a Thouſand, and thoſe not conſiderably bigger or leſs than one another. But this by no means proves what he would have it; and his Miſtake was chiefly, that he did not conſider the Nature of Fire and Flame which may be ſeen at ſuch diſtances, and at ſuch ſmall Angles as all other Bodies would totally diſappear under. A thing that we need go no farther than the Lamps ſet along the Streets to prove. For altho’ they are a hundred Foot from one another, yet you may count Twenty of them in a continued Row with your Eyes, and yet the twentieth Part of them ſcarce makes an Angle of ſix Seconds. Certainly then the glorious Light of the Stars muſt do much more than this; ſo that it’s no wonder we ſhould ſee a Thouſand or two of them with our bare Eyes, and with a Teleſcope diſcover twenty times that number. But Kepler had a private Deſign in making the Sun thus ſuperiour to all the other Stars, and planting it in the Middle of the World, attended with the Planets: For his Aim was hereby to ſtrengthen his Coſmographical Myſtery, that the Diſtances of the Planets from the Sun are in a certain proportion to the Diameters of the Spheres that are inſcribed within, and circumſcribed about Euclid’s Regular Bodies. Which could never be ſo much as probable, except there were but one Chorus of Planets moving round the Sun, and ſo the Sun were the only one of his kind.