iter, Saturn,
Mars, &c.--have fallen into a profound error, since even if a man were
as great as our earth, he would have the appearance of a little star,
which appears like a dot in the universe; and moreover these men are
mortal, and decay and corrupt in their sepulchres.

{154}

33.

Epicurus perhaps saw the shadows of columns on the walls in front of
them equal to the diameter of the column which cast the shadow; and
since the breadth of the shadows are parallel from beginning to end he
considered that he might infer that the sun also was directly opposite
to this parallel, and consequently no broader than the column; and he
did not perceive that the diminution of the shadow was insensibly small
owing to the great distance of the sun. If the sun were smaller than
the earth, the stars in a great portion of our hemisphere would be
without light--in contradiction to Epicurus, who says the sun is only
as large as it appears to be.

34.

Epicurus says the sun is the size it seems to be; hence, as it seems to
be a foot in breadth, we must consider that to be its size. It follows
that when the moon eclipses the sun, the sun ought not to appear the
larger, as it does; hence, the moon being smaller than the sun, the
moon must be less than a foot in breadth, and consequently when the
earth eclipses the moon it must be less than a foot by a finger's
breadth; inasmuch as if the sun is a foot in breadth, and the earth
casts a conical shadow on the moon, it is inevitable that the luminous
cause of the conical shadow {155} must be greater than the opaque body
which causes it.

35.

Measure how many times the diameter of the sun will go into its course
in twenty-four hours. And thus we can see whether Epicurus was correct
in saying the sun was only as large as it appeared to be; for as the
apparent diameter of the sun is about a foot, and as the sun would go a
thousand times into its course in twenty-four hours, it would have
travelled a thousand feet, that is, three hundred arms' length, which
is the sixth of a mile. Thus the course of the sun during twenty-four
hours would have been the sixth part of a mile, and this venerable
snail, the sun, would have travelled twenty-five arms' length in an
hour.

[Sidenote: The Sun's Heat]

36.

They say that the sun is not hot because it is not the colour of fire
but whiter and clearer. And the answer to this is that when molten
bronze is hottest it resembles the