It is proved that the sun is by nature hot and not cold, as has already been stated. If rays of fire play on a concave mirror when it is cold, the rays refracted by the mirror will be hotter than {156} the fire. The rays emitted from a sphere of glass filled with cold water, which are reflected from a fire, will be warmer than the fire. It follows from these two experiments that the heat of the rays reflected by the mirror or the sphere of cold water are hot by virtue, and not because the mirror or the sphere is hot; and in this case it occurs that the sun, passing through these bodies, heats them by its virtue. And owing to this they have inferred that the sun is not hot,--which by the aforesaid experiments has been proved to be exceedingly hot, by the experiment of the mirror and the sphere, which are cold in themselves, and reflect the hot rays of the fire and render them hotter, because the first cause is hot; and the same thing occurs as regards the sun, which, being hot in itself, and passing through these cold mirrors, refracts great heat. It is not the light of the sun which gives warmth, but its natural heat.
[Sidenote: Rays of the Sun]
The rays of the sun pass through the cold region of the air without any change being effected in their nature, they pass through glasses full of cold water without suffering change; through whatever transparent spot they pass, it is as though they passed through so much air.
[Sidenote: Light of the Stars]
Some writers allege that the stars shine of {157} themselves, saying that if Venus and Mercury did not shine of themselves, when their light comes between them and the sun they would darken as much of the sun as they could hide from our eye; this is false, because it is proved that a dark body placed against a luminous body is enveloped and altogether covered by the lateral rays of the remaining part of that body, and thus remains invisible; as may be proved when the sun is seen through the boughs of a leafless tree at a long distance, the boughs do not hide any portion of the sun from our eyes. The same thing occurs with the above-mentioned planets, which, though they have no light in themselves, do not, as has been said, hide any portion of the sun from our eyes.
Second proof. They say that the stars shine most brightly at night in proportion as they are high; and that, if they did not shine of themselves, the shadow cast by the earth between them and the sun would darken them, since they would not see nor be seen by the sun. But these have not taken into consideration that the conical shadow of the moon does not reach many of the stars, and even for those it does reach the shadow is diminished to such an extent that it covers very little of the star, and the remaining part is illumined by the sun.
{158}
[Sidenote: On the Nature of the Moon]
The moon having density and gravity, how does it stand?
i. No very light object is opaque.
ii. Nothing light can remain beneath that which is heavier.
iii. Whether the moon is the centre of its elements or not. And if it has no fixed position like the earth in the centre of its elements, why does it not fall to the centre of our elements? And if the moon is not in the centre of its elements and does not fall, it must then be lighter than any other element. And if the moon is lighter than the other elements, why is it opaque and not transparent?