47.

How the earth is a star. The earth, in the midst of the sphere of
water which clothes the greater part of it, taking its light from the
sun and shining in the universe like the other stars, shows itself to
be a star as well.

[Sidenote: To prove the Earth a Star]

48.

First of all define the eye; then show how the twinkling of a star
exists really in the eye, and why one star should twinkle more than
another, and how the rays of the stars are born in the eye. Say, that
if the twinkling of the stars were, as it appears to be, really in the
stars, that this {162} twinkling appears to extend in proportion to the
body of the star. The star, therefore, being larger than the earth,
this motion made in an instant of time would in its velocity double the
size of the star. Then prove that the surface of the atmosphere,
contiguous to fire and the surface of fire, where it ends, is the point
in which the rays of the sun penetrate and bear the image of the
celestial bodies which are large when they rise and set, and small when
they are on the meridian.

[Sidenote: Earth not the Center of Universe]

49.

The earth is not the centre of the orbit of the sun, nor the centre of
the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements and united
with them; and if any one were to stand on the moon when the moon and
the sun are beneath us, our earth, with its element of water, would
appear and shine for him just as the moon appears and shines for us.

50.

The earth, shining like the moon, has lost a great part of its ancient
splendour by the decrease of the waters.

51.

Nothing is generated in a place where is no sentient vegetable and
rational life; feathers grow on birds and change every year; coats grow
on animals and are changed every year, with some {163} exceptions, like
the lion's beard and the cat's fur, and such; grass grows in the fields
and leaves on the trees; and every year they are renewed in great part.
Thus we can say that the spirit of growth is the soul of the earth, the
soil its flesh, the ordered arrangement of rocks its bones, of which
mountains are formed, the tufa its tendons; its blood the veins of
water which surround its heart, which is the ocean; its breathing and
increase and decrease of blood in the pulses the ebb and flood of the
sea; and the heat of the spirit of the world is fire which pervades the
earth, and the vital soul dwells in the fires which from various
aper