which are scattered over the darkened sky. But I cannot forbear to condemn many of the ancients, who said that the sun was no larger than it appears; among these was Epicurus, and I believe that he founded his reason on the effects of a light placed in our atmosphere equidistant from the centre of the earth. Any one looking at it never sees it diminished in size at whatever distance; and the rea-
[Footnote 879-882: What Leonardo says of Epicurus— who according to LEWIS, The Astronomy of the ancients, and MADLER, Geschichte der Himmelskunde, did not devote much attention to the study of celestial phenomena—, he probably derived from Book X of Diogenes Laertius, whose Vitae Philosophorum was not printed in Greek till 1533, but the Latin translation appeared in 1475.]
880.
sons of its size