Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/188

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impression tends to permanence or seeks to attain permanence. That every impression seeks after permanence is proved by the impression made by the sun on the eye which regards it, and in the impression of sound made by the hammer which strikes a bell. Every impression seeks after permanence, as is shown in the image of impetus communicated to the objecft moved.

30.

A weight seeks to fall to the centre of the earth by the most direct, way.

31.

If you look at the stars, warding off the rays (as may be done by looking through a small hole made by the extreme point of a fine needle placed so as almost to touch the eye), they will appear so small as to seem as though nothing could be smaller; it is owing to their great distance that they appear so small, for many of them are very many times larger than the star which is the earth with its water. Now reflect; what appearance this our star must have from so great a distance, and then consider how many stars might be placed — both in longitude and latitude—between those stars which are sown in the dark space. I can never refrain from blaming many of the ancients who said that the size of the sun was no greater than

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