Empedocles, that the fixed stars fastened to the crystal, but the planets are loosened.

Plato, that the stars for the most part are of a fiery nature, but they are made partakers of another element, with they are mixed after the resemblance of glue.

Zenophanes, that they are composed of inflamed clouds, which in the daytime are quenched, and in the night are kindled again.

The like we see in coals; for the rising and setting of the stars is nothing else but the quenching and kindling of them.

Heraclitus and the Pythagoreans, that every star is a world in an infinite aether, and encompasseth air, earth, and aether; this opinion is current among the disciples of Orpheus, for they suppose that each of the stars does make a world.