Book 2
25
ANAXIMANDER affirms that the circle of the moon is nineteen times bigger than the earth, and resembles the sun, its orb being full of fire; and it suffers an eclipse when the wheel turneth,—which he describes by the divers turnings of a chariot-wheel, in the midst of it there being a hollow replenished with fire, which hath but one way of expiration. Xenophanes, that it is a condensed cloud. The Stoics, that it is mixed of fire and air. Plato, that it is a body of the greatest part earthy. Anaxagoras and Democritus, that it is a solid, condensed, and fiery body, in which there are champaign countries, mountains, and valleys. Heraclitus, that it is an earth covered with a cloud. Pythagoras, that the body of the moon was of a nature like a mirror.
Chapter XXVI. OF THE MAGNITUDE OF THE MOON.
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THE Stoics declare, that in magnitude it exceeds the earth, as the sun itself doth. Parmenides, that it is equal to the sun, from whom it receives its light.
Chapter XXVII. OF THE FIGURE OF THE MOON.
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THE Stoics believe that it is of the same figure with the sun, spherical. Empedocles, that the figure of it resembles a quoit. Heraclitus, a boat. Others, a cylinder.
Chapter XXVIII. FROM WHENCE IS IT THAT THE MOON RECEIVES HER LIGHT?
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ANAXIMANDER thinks that she gives light to herself, but it is very slender and faint. Antiphon, that the moon shines by its own proper light; but when it absconds itself; the solar beams darting on it obscure it. Thus it naturally happens, that a more vehement light puts out a weaker; the same is seen in other stars. Thales and his followers, that the moon borrows all her light of the sun. Heraclitus, that the sun and moon are after the same manner affected; in their configurations both are shaped like boats, and are made conspicuous to us, receiving their light from moist exhalations. The sun appears to us more refulgent, by reason it is moved in a clearer and purer air; the moon appears more duskish, it being carried in an air more troubled and gross.
