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Meteorology By Aristotle

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Bathos
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« Reply #15 on: August 30, 2009, 11:41:17 pm »

Part 8

Let us now explain the origin, cause, and nature of the milky way.
And here too let us begin by discussing the statements of others on
the subject.

(1) Of the so-called Pythagoreans some say that this is the path of
one of the stars that fell from heaven at the time of Phaethon's downfall.
Others say that the sun used once to move in this circle and that
this region was scorched or met with some other affection of this
kind, because of the sun and its motion.

But it is absurd not to see that if this were the reason the circle
of the Zodiac ought to be affected in the same way, and indeed more
so than that of the milky way, since not the sun only but all the
planets move in it. We can see the whole of this circle (half of it
being visible at any time of the night), but it shows no signs of
any such affection except where a part of it touches the circle of
the milky way.

(2) Anaxagoras, Democritus, and their schools say that the milky way
is the light of certain stars. For, they say, when the sun passes
below the earth some of the stars are hidden from it. Now the light
of those on which the sun shines is invisible, being obscured by the
of the sun. But the milky way is the peculiar light of those stars
which are shaded by the earth from the sun's rays.

This, too, is obviously impossible. The milky way is always unchanged
and among the same constellations (for it is clearly a greatest circle),
whereas, since the sun does not remain in the same place, what is
hidden from it differs at different times. Consequently with the change
of the sun's position the milky way ought to change its position too:
but we find that this does not happen. Besides, if astronomical demonstrations
are correct and the size of the sun is greater than that of the earth
and the distance of the stars from the earth many times greater than
that of the sun (just as the sun is further from the earth than the
moon), then the cone made by the rays of the sun would terminate at
no great distance from the earth, and the shadow of the earth (what
we call night) would not reach the stars. On the contrary, the sun
shines on all the stars and the earth screens none of them.

(3) There is a third theory about the milky way. Some say that it
is a reflection of our sight to the sun, just as they say that the
comet is.
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