what is the figure or shape of the sun.

anaximenes affirms that in its dilatation it resembles a leaf. heraclitus, that it hath the shape of a boat, and is somewhat crooked. the stoics, that it is spherical, and it is of the same figure with the world and the stars. epicurus, that the recited dogmas may be defended.

chapter xxiii.

of the turning and returning of the stars, or the summer and winter solstice.

anaximenes believes that the stars are forced by a condensed and resisting air. anaxagoras, by the repelling force of the northern air, which is violently pushed on by the sun, and thus rendered more condensed and powerful. empedocles, that the sun is hindered from a continual direct course by its spherical vehicle and by the two circular tropics. diogenes, that the sun, when it comes to its utmost declination, is extinguished, a rigorous cold damping the heat. the stoics, that the sun maintains its course only through that space in which its sustenance is seated, let it be the ocean or the earth; by the exhalations proceeding from these it is nourished. plato, pythagoras, and aristotle, that the sun receives a transverse motion from the obliquity of the zodiac, which is guarded by the tropics; all these the globe clearly manifests.