: An original theory or new hypothesis of the universe by Wright Thomas - Astronomy Early works to 1800

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o such Thing as real nocturnal Darkness to any Part of the World.

LETTER the FOURTH.

This to any tolerable Optician, must be an evident Conviction of the Truth of the modern Astronomy, which now universally allow all those radiant Bodies the Stars to be of the same Nature with the Sun; and that as certainly they are no other than vast Globes of blazing Matter, all undoubtedly shining by their own native Light.

But how ridiculous and absurd all these Opinions and Conjectures really are, will easily appear, if we but once consider the Nature of an unbounded AEther, and the amazing Property of infinite Space.

Sherburne.

And again, in the same Poem:

The fiery Stars, and AEther that creates Infinite Orbs, and others dissipates.

But that I may not take up too much of your Time with Opinions that has been imbibed in the Infancy of Astronomy, and has long ago been exploded, I shall attempt but one Thing more to confirm your Sentiments in this new Doctrine.

Resplendent Sparks of the first Fire! In which the Beauty we admire, And Light of those eternal Rays, The uncreated Mind displays.

It remains now I think to shew, and endeavour to prove, that the Stars are not only light Bodies of the Nature of the Sun, but that they are really so many Suns, all performing like Offices of Heat and Gravity, in a regular Order, throughout the visible Creation, in opposition to an Opinion you have formerly hinted at, of their being in another Sense of a secondary Nature.

All Objects within the sensible Sphere of the Sun's Attraction, or Activity, are in some measure magnified by a good Telescope: But the Stars are all placed so far without it, that the best Glasses has no other Effect upon them than making them appear more vivid or lively, but all innate opaque Bodies, reflecting only a borrowed Light from some primary one, contrary to this Property, are all observed to lose their Light, in the same Proportion, as they are magnified, and through all Glasses become more dull than otherwise they appear to the naked Eye: And hence we may infer, without any further Evidence, that the Stars are all light Bodies endowed with native Lustre; and that Bodies, like the known Planets, from the same Reasoning, it is as clear they cannot be, because their Distance, though uncertain as to the Truth of the whole, yet such a Part of it as cannot be denied, would render them all in such a Case invisible.

A Proof of this will plainly present itself, if we consider the Course of the known Comets, who all of them, without Exception, become imperceptible, and intirely disappear; though most of them much bigger than the Earth, or any of the lesser Planets, long before they arrive at their respective Aphelions.

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