se two bodies, the sun and moon, are thus potent, must it not be
supposed, reasoned the astronomers of old, that the other celestial
bodies exert corresponding influences? _We_ know, but they did not know,
that the moon rules the tides effectually because she is near to us, and
that the sun is second only to the moon in tidal influence because of
his enormous mass and attractive energy. We know also that his position
as fire, light, and life of the earth and its inhabitants, is due
directly to the tremendous heat with which the whole of his mighty
frame is instinct. Not knowing this, the astronomers of old times had no
sufficient reason for distinguishing the sun and moon from the other
celestial bodies, so far at least as the general question of celestial
influences was concerned.

So far as particulars were concerned, it was not altogether so clear to
them as it is to us, that the influence of the sun must be paramount in
all respects save tidal action, and that of the moon second only to the
sun's in other respects, and superior to his in tidal sway alone. Many
writers on the subject of life in other worlds are prepared to show (as
Brewster attempts to do, for example) that Jupiter and Saturn are far
nobler worlds than the earth, because superior in this or that
circumstance. So the ancient astronomers, in their ignorance of the
actual conditions on which celestial influences depend, found abundant
reasons for regarding the feeble influences exerted by Saturn, Jupiter,
and Mars, as really more potent than those exerted by the sun himself
upon the earth. They reasoned, as Milton afterwards made Raphael reason,
that 'great or bright infers not excellence,' that Saturn or Jupiter,
though 'in comparison so small, nor glist'ring' to like degree, may yet
'of solid good contain more plenty than the sun.' Supposing the
influence of a celestial body to depend on the magnitude of its sphere,
in the sense of the old astronomy (according to which each planet had
its proper sphere, around the earth as centre), then the influence of
the sun would be judged to be inferior to that of either Saturn,
Jupiter, or Mars; while the influences of Venus and Mercury, though
inferior to the influence of the sun, would still be held superior to
that of the moon. For the ancients measured the spheres of the seven
planets of their system by the periods of the apparent revolution of
those bodies around the celestial dome, and so set the sphere of