454 OF SUN-BEAMS AND STAR- BEAMS. our night and day are only distinguished by the little globe of our earth turning its different sides toward the sun, which is an inconsiderable thing in the vast solar world, or planetary system. The reason why we do not discern the stars by day, being only the superior quantity and force of the sun-beams striking the eye, whereas the star-beams strike also constantly, but so feebly, as not to be noticed : And the reason why we do not see the sun by night, being the interposition ofthe earth, and the sun-beams that go beside the earth, fly from our eyes,, and not toward them : But the same quantity of sun and star- beams are perpetu- ally flowing through the ether in every minute part of it, except only those few places where the planets or their satellites inter- cept them, and stop their motion. Now the corollaries that may be drawn from these supposititions are, 1. That since light is a body, which has been sufficiently proved by its reflexiona and refractions, í&c. the ether is, not so void a space as perhaps some have been ready to imagine, since there is not a minute spot in it, wherein there are not_ many thousand bodies 'always moving with prodigious swift- ness all manner of ways. And it maybe enquired whether the planets moving through well a fluid, would not by degrees be retarded in their courses ; brit the next corollary perhaps may answer it. 2. How amazing must be the subtlety and smallness of these rays, which have been shooting from the sun and stars for almost six thousand years, and yet no sensible addition is made'to the bulk of our globe where they seem to be all lost, nor any sensible diminution of the sun or stars whence they all proceed ? And if these corpuscles which compose this wondrous thing called light, are so inconceivably small, and the body be so rare, perhaps the planets may pass through, it without sensi- ble retardation. And yet Dr. L. Dailey has told us in Miscel- lanea Curiosa, p. 59. he thinks he can demonstrate, that the opposition of the ether to the motion of the planets in long time becomes sensible: 3. What a surprising Work of God is vision, that notwith- standing all these infinite meetings and crossings óf star-beams and sun -beams night and day,through all our solar world, there should be such a regular conveyance of light toevery eye, as to discern eachstar sodistinctly by night, as well as all other objects on earth by day? And this difficulty and wonder will be greatly increased by considering the innumerable double, treble, and ten-fold reflec- tions and refractions ofsun-beams or daylight near our earth, and among the various bodies on the surface of it. Let ten thousand men stand round a large elevated amphitheatre; in the middle of it, on a black plain, let ten thousand white round plates be placed, of two inches diameter, and at two inches distance;
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