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If you look at the stars, cutting off the rays (as may be done by
looking through a very small hole made with the extreme point of a
very fine needle, placed so as almost to touch the eye), you will
see those stars so minute that it would seem as though nothing could
be smaller; it is in fact their great distance which is the reason
of their diminution, for many of them are very many times larger
than the star which is the earth with water. Now reflect what this
our star must look like at such a distance, and then consider how
many stars might be added--both in longitude and latitude--between
those stars which are scattered over the darkened sky. But I cannot
forbear to condemn many of the ancients, who said that the sun was
no larger than it appears; among these was Epicurus, and I believe
that he founded his reason on the effects of a light placed in our
atmosphere equidistant from the centre of the earth. Any one looking
at it never sees it diminished in size at whatever distance; and the
rea-
[
Footnote 879-882: What Leonardo says of Epicurus-- who according to
LEWIS, The Astronomy of the ancients, and MADLER, Geschichte der
Himmelskunde, did not devote much attention to the study of
celestial phenomena--, he probably derived from Book X of Diogenes
Laertius, whose Vitae Philosophorum was not printed in Greek till
1
533, but the Latin translation appeared in 1475.]
8
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