[footnote' *The following remarkable passage on the radiation of heat from
the fixed stars, and on their low combustion and vitality -- one of Kepler's
many aspirations -- occurs in the 'Paralipom. in Vitell. Astron.
parsOpticqa', 1604, Propos. xxxii., p. 25: "Luciis proprium est calor,
sydera omnia calefaciunt. De syderum luce claritatis ratio testatur,
calorem universorum in minori esse proportione ad calorem unius solis, quam
ut ab homine, cujus est certa caloris mensura, utrque simul percipi et
judicari possit. De cincindularum lucula tenuissima negare non potes, quin
cum calore sit. Vivunt enim et moventur, hoc auten non sine calefactione
perficitur. Sic neque putrescentium lignorum lux sui calore destituitur;
nam ipsa puetredo quidam lentus ignis est. Inest et stirpibus suus calor."
(Compare Kepler, 'Epit. Astron. Copernican??', 1618, t. i., lib. i., p. 35.)
Another and different kind of cosmical, or, rather, material mode of contact
is, however, opened to us, if we admit falling stars and meteoric stones to
be planetary asteroids. They not only act upon us merely from a distance by
the excitement of luminous or calorific vibrations, or in obedience to the
laws of mutual attraction, but they acquire an actual material existence for
us, reaching our atmosphere from the remoter regions of universal space, and
remaining on the earth itself.
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