aven, came from thence; and that famous stone that fell from heaven in
Aristotle's time, olymp. 84, _anno tertio, ad Capuas Fluenta_, recorded by
Laertius and others, or Ancile or buckler in Numa's time, recorded by
Festus. We may likewise insert with Campanella and Brunus, that which
Pythagoras, Aristarchus, Samius, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Melissus,
Democritus, Leucippus maintained in their ages, there be [3110]infinite
worlds, and infinite earths or systems, _in infinito aethere_, which
[3111]Eusebius collects out of their tenets, because infinite stars and
planets like unto this of ours, which some stick not still to maintain and
publicly defend, _sperabundus expecto innumerabilium mundorum in
aeternitate per ambulationem_, &c. (Nic. Hill. Londinensis _philos.
Epicur._) For if the firmament be of such an incomparable bigness, as these
Copernical giants will have it, _infinitum, aut infinito proximum_, so vast
and full of innumerable stars, as being infinite in extent, one above
another, some higher, some lower, some nearer, some farther off, and so far
asunder, and those so huge and great, insomuch that if the whole sphere of
Saturn, and all that is included in it, _totum aggregatum_ (as Fromundus of
Louvain in his tract, _de immobilitate terrae_ argues) _evehatur inter
stellas, videri a nobis non poterat, tam immanis est distantia inter
tellurem et fixas, sed instar puncti_, &c. If our world be small in
respect, why may we not suppose a plurality of worlds, those infinite stars
visible in the firmament to be so many suns, with particular fixed centres;
to have likewise their subordinate planets, as the sun hath his dancing
still round him? which Cardinal Cusanus, Walkarinus, Brunus, and some
others have held, and some still maintain, _Animae, Aristotelismo
innutritae, et minutis speculationibus assuetae, secus forsan_, &c. Though
they seem close to us, they are infinitely distant, and so _per
consequens_, there are infinite habitable worlds: what hinders? Why should
not an infinite cause (as God is) produce infinite effects? as Nic. Hill.
_Democrit. philos._ disputes: Kepler (I confess) will by no means admit of
Brunus's infinite worlds, or that the fixed stars should be so many suns,
with their compassing planets, yet the said [3112]Kepler between jest and
earnest in his perspectives, lunar geography, [3113] & _somnio suo,
dissertat. cum nunc. sider._ seems in part to agree with this, and partly
to contradict; for the p