What a wonderful and amazing Scheme have we here of the magnificent Vaſtneſs of the Univerſe! So many Suns, ſo many Earths, and every one of them ſtock’d with ſo many Herbs, Trees, and Animals, and adorn’d with ſo many Seas and Mountains! And how muſt our Wonder and Admiration be increaſed when we conſider the prodigious Diſtance and Multitude of the Stars? That their Diſtance is ſo immenſe, that the Space between the Earth and Sun (which is no leſs than Twelve thouſand of the Earth’s Diameters) is almoſt nothing when compar’d to it, has more Proofs than one to confirm it. And this among the reſt. If you obſerve two Stars near one another, as for example thoſe in the middle of the Great Bears Tail, differing very much from one another in Clearneſs, notwithſtanding our changing our Poſition in our Annual Orbit round the Sun, and that there would be a Parallax were the Star which is brighter nearer to us than the other, as is very probable it is, yet whatever Part of the Year you look upon them, they will not in the leaſt have altered their diſtance. Thoſe that have hitherto undertook to calculate their Diſtance, have not been able perfectly to compaſs their Deſign, by reaſon of the extreme Niceneſs and almoſt Impoſſibility of the Obſervations requiſite for their Purpoſe. The only Method that I ſee remaining, to come at any tolerable Probability in ſo difficult a Caſe, I ſhall here make uſe of. Seeing then that the Stars, as I ſaid before, are ſo many Suns, if we do but ſuppoſe one of them equal to ours, it will follow that its diſtance from us is as much greater than that of the Sun, as its apparent Diameter is leſs than the Diameter of the Sun. But the Stars, even thoſe of the firſt Magnitude, though view’d through a Teleſcope, are ſo very ſmall, that they ſeem only like ſo many ſhining Points, without any perceivable Breadth. So that ſuch Obſervations can here do us no good. When [A way of making a probable gueſs at the diſtance of the Stars.] I ſaw this would not ſucceed, I ſtudied by what way I could ſo leſſen the Diameter of the Sun, as to make it not appear larger than the Dog, or any other of the chief Stars. To this purpoſe I clos’d one End of my twelve-foot Tube with a very thin Plate, in the Middle of which I made a Hole not exceeding the twelfth Part of a Line, that is the hundred and forty fourth Part of an Inch. That End I turn’d to the Sun, placing my Eye at the other, and I could ſee ſo much of the Sun as was in Diameter about the 182d part of the Whole. But ſtill that little piece of him was brighter much than the Dog-ſtar is in the cleareſt Night. I ſaw that this would not do, but that muſt leſſen the Diameter of the Sun a great deal more. I made then ſuch another Hole in a Plate, and againſt it I plac’d a little round Glaſs that I had made uſe of in my Microſcopes, of much about the ſame Diameter with the former Hole. Then looking again towards the Sun (taking care that no Light might