thus: seeds suitably appropriated to such an end may emanate either from one or from several worlds, or from the space that separates them; they flow towards a particular point where they become collected together and organized; after that, other germs come to unite them together in such a way as to form a durable whole, a basis, a nucleus to which all successive additions unite themselves.
“One must not content one’s self in this question with saying, as one of the natural philosophers has done, that there is a re-union of the elements, or a violent motion in the vacuum under the influence of necessity, and that the body which is thus produced increases until it comes to crash against some other; for this doctrine is contrary to appearances.
“The sun, the moon, and the other stars, were originally formed separately, and were afterwards comprehended in the entire total of the world. All the other objects which our world comprises, for instance, the earth and the sea, were also formed spontaneously, and subsequently gained size by the addition and violent movement of light substances, composed of elements of fire and air, or even of these two principles at once. This explanation, moreover, is in accordance with the impressions of the senses.
“As to the magnitude of the sun and of the other stars, it is as far as we are concerned, such as it appears to us to be.”
(This same doctrine is reproduced, and occurs again in the eleventh book of his treatise on Nature; where he says, “If the distance has made it lose its size, à fortiori, it would take away its brilliancy; for colour has not, any more than size, the property of traversing distance without alteration.”)
“But, considered by itself, the sun may be a little greater or a little smaller than it appears; or it may be just such as it looks; for that is exactly the case with the fires of common occurrence among men, which are perceived by the senses at a