*
[footnote] *Aristot., 'Meteor.', i., 8, 11-14, und 19-21 (ed. Ideler, t.
i., p. 32-34). Biese, 'Phil. des Aristoteles', bd. ii., s. 86. Since
Aristotle exercised so great an influence throughout the whole of the Middle
Ages, it is very much to be regretted that he was so averse to those grander
views of the elder Pythagoreans, which inculcated ideas so nearly
approximating to truth respecting the structure of the universe. He asserts
that comets are transitory meteors belonging to our atmosphere in the very
book in which he cites the opinion of the Pythagorean school, according to
which these cosmical bodies are supposed to be planets having long periods
of revolution. (Aristot., i., 6, 2.) This Pythagorean doctrine, which,
according to the testimony of Apollonius Myndius, was still more ancient,
having originated with the Chaldeans, passed over to the Romans, who in this
instance, as was their usual practice, were merely the copiers of others.
The Myndian philosopher describes the path of comets as directed toward the
upper and remote regions of heaven. Hence Seneca says, in his 'Nat.
Quaest.', vii., 17: "Cometes non est species falsa, sed proprium sidus
sicut solis et lunae: altiora mundi secat et tunc demum apparet quum in
imum cursum sui venit;" and again (at vii.
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