I think they were influenced by the fable of Phaeton which Ovid narrates at the beginning of the second book of his Metamorphoses. Others, as Anaxagoras and Democritus, said that it was the light of the Sun reflected in that part. And these opinions they proved by demonstrative reasons. What Aristotle said upon this subject cannot be exactly known, because his opinion is not the same in one translation as in the other. And I think this was an error of the translators; for in the new he seems to say that it is a collection of vapors beneath the stars in that part, which always attract them; and this does not seem to be very reasonable. In the old he says, that the Galaxy is nothing but a multitude of fixed stars in that part, so small that we cannot distinguish them here below, but from them proceeds that brightness which we call the Galaxy. And it may be that the heaven in that part is more dense, and there fore retains and reflects that light; and this seems to be the opinion of Aristotle, Avicenna, and Ptolemy.