Harmony of the spheres

“ Whether solid globes or hollow spheres, they equally owe their existence to the great first cause, that spoke matter into existence, that arranged it in whatever form and order infinite wisdom dictated ”

“ We see, then, what we must understand by the oft-recurring spheres in Milton’s poetry. In the line, Down through the turning sphere, however, the singular sphere is obviously used to mean the whole aggregate of spheres composing the starry universe. ”

“ The Crystalline Spheres.—We have seen that all the heavenly bodies appear to be situated on the surface of the celestial sphere. The ancients assumed that the stars were really fixed on the surface of a crystalline sphere, and that they were carried around the earth daily by the rotation of this sphere. ”

“ Later, these remarkable people, in trying to account for the fixed and orderly movement of the stars as they slowly passed from east to west, adduced that they must be fastened in crystal spheres which whirled, one within the other, over and under the motionless disk of the earth. ”

“ In investigating the interior of the earth we did not find a central shaft running from pole to pole, such as has been described by some mediums, nor did we find a number of concentric spheres resting upon cushions of steam. ”

“ The spheres are veined and streaked and spotted beneath, with a dark crimson flush above, where the light falls on them, and in a certain aspect you can make out upon every one of them the three letters L, I, E. The child to whom they are offered very probably clutches at both. The spheres are the most convenient things in the world; they roll with the least possible impulse just where the child would have them. ”

“ Below the sphere of the moon there exists a grade of entities which are generated from coarser matter, but are susceptible of form, shape, and motion. This is the world of the four elements, which are in their turn fashioned into four spheres, one above the other. Within these spheres are formed, through manifold evolutions, influenced by the world of stars, lifeless minerals, plants, self-moving animals, and men capable of intelligence. ”

“ When we come to the study of the earth as a body, we find it composed of four particles: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, and the centrosphere. When we consider it as a body we consider form and structure; when we consider the spheres as particles their relations are those of space, one above another; thus in the body there is form, in the particles there is position, and that which is position in the particle constitutes structure in the body. ”

“ When the sphere turned, with its high side towards the sun, it would be night, or twilight, and when the low side was next the sun, it would be day; at all events, the direct rays of the sun would fall on a space of about thirty-six and a half degrees in breadth; the reflection from which would light the whole of the remaining portion of the inner part of the sphere, to a greater degree, than any moon-light with which we are acquainted. ”

“ In 1818 he promulgated his theory that the earth is a hollow sphere, habitable within, and open at the poles for the admission of light, and containing within it six or seven concentric hollow spheres, also open at the poles. ”

“ We cannot deny that the heavenly spheres exercise influence on terrestrial matters. We must admit that the material components of growth and decay are dependent on the sphere, whilst the forms take their origin from Him who arranges and guides them, and makes them the instruments for the preservation of all the things which He wishes should exist. ”

“ The Sphere would willingly have continued his lessons by indoctrinating me in the conformation of all regular Solids, Cylinders, Cones, Pyramids, Pentahedrons, Hexahedrons, Dodecahedrons, and Spheres: but I ventured to interrupt him. Not that I was wearied of knowledge. On the contrary, I thirsted for yet deeper and fuller draughts than he was offering to me. ”

“ The primary mucus does not swell into a single sphere, but it divides into infinitely numerous spheres. For were it only one sphere, it would be the planet itself. But it is an individual, or only one sphere in the great sphere. The idea of the great sphere consists however of an infinity of small spheres. ”

“ The surface of a sphere cannot be regarded as a continuum, but as drops, or the fashion of the heavenly bodies, or as when a given quantity of air is displaced so many spheres are readily moved amidst other spheres. ”

“ Yet a sphere with that radius of ten year’s flight would cover such an enormous quantity of space as to be beyond our comprehension and still be of no consequence in comparison with the spheres of one hundred, one thousand, one million, or one thousand millions of years radii. ”

“ It follows that we are in the heart of a hollow sphere of loveliest blue, spangled with light. Now the sphere is the one perfect geometrical form. Over and round us then we have the one perfect shape. ”

“ In addition to this, the system is represented as involving an extravagant conception of the nature of the orbs which it introduces; that they are crystalline spheres, and that the vast spaces which intervene between the celestial luminaries are a solid mass, formed by the fitting together of many masses perpetually in motion; an imagination which is presumed to be incredible and monstrous. ”

“ In many parts of the unfathomable ocean there may be communications or passages from the surface of the sphere on the outer side to the surface of the inner, at least all except the great mid-plane space, through which liquid apertures, light and heat may be communicated, perhaps, to the interior surface of the sphere. ”

“ It can indeed be proved that there are ten mobile spheres in which the fiery bodies accomplish their regular courses. Yet by these arguments that ultimate, motionless sphere which embraces and encircles all from our terrestial abode to its circumference within its crystalline self, encompassing plainly the utmost shores and limits of the universe, cannot be proved. ”

“ Each sphere or group of spheres with the star it carries is moved by an incorporeal mover, a spirit or Intelligence, and over them all is the first unmoved mover, God. He sets in motion the outer sphere of the fixed stars, and so the whole world moves. There is nothing said in this of the origin of these spheres and their intelligible movers. ”

“ Others thought the earth was a sphere because “the sphere is the most perfect form; it was the center of the universe because that is the place of honor; and it is motionless, because motion is less dignified than rest.” Some believed that the earth is round and rests upon the ocean. ”

“ You have said that atmospheres or spheres surround and pervade all bodies, unless, indeed, they be dead bodies—attributing, as I understand you, a kind of cosmic life to plants, and a mineral life to minerals, as well as a vegetable and animal life respectively to vegetables and animals; do you mean by that to intimate that the sphere is the effect or the cause of the living body? ”

“ And as we lifted higher and higher the circle changed before our eyes into a sphere—a tremendous, faintly glowing sphere of size inconceivable, filling the heavens with its vast bulk, feebly luminous like the ghost of some mighty sun, rushing through space to meet us as we sped up and over it. ”

“ Ring out, ye crystal spheres! 125
Once bless our human ears,
If ye have power to touch our senses so;
And let your silver chime
Move in melodious time;
And let the bass of heaven’s deep organ blow; 130
And with your ninefold harmony
Make up full consort to the angelic symphony. ”

“ Not merely a hollow sphere, you understand. Everything—including empty space, solid matter and energy, is on the surface of this hypersphere. Thus our galaxy constitutes one point imbedded in the surface of the sphere ... ”

“ However, somehow or other the conception of a spherical earth was gradually grasped, and the heavenly bodies were perceived all to revolve round it: some moving regularly, as the stars, all fixed together into one spherical shell or firmament ”

“ From this it is necessarily concluded that there are ten spheres.
Theo. Why so?
Myst. Because every natural body [455] has but one movement which is its own by nature; all others are either voluntary or through violence, contrary to the nature of a mobile object; for just as a stone cannot of its own impulse ascend and descend, so one and the same sphere cannot of itself turn from the east to the west and from the west to the east and still less from the north to the south and south to north. ”

“ Till two hundred years ago the Mundus, or physical system of things, to even the most learned of men, with scarcely an exception, was a finite spectacular sphere, or succession of spheres, that of the fixed stars nearly outermost, wheeling round the central earth for her pleasure; as we penetrate through still prior centuries, even this finite spherical Mundus is seen to shrink and shrink in men’s fancies of it till a radius of some hundreds of miles would sweep from the earth to the starry roof ”

“ As a physicist Aristotle felt the necessity of introducing further spheres between the nests of spheres assigned by Eudoxus to the planetary bodies, spheres whose peculiar motions should correct the tendency of the different groups of spheres to pass their motions on to each other. ”

“ Occasionally the brilliant spheres that hung, spinning in mid-air, darted suddenly toward the larger globe in the center. When one of the smaller spheres neared it, the central ball emitted a peculiar high-pitched hum. The globes, combined with the darting lights, gave me the impression that they must be used by the Jovians for some astronomical purpose. The big sphere, I thought, must represent the home planet of the grotesque beings. ”

“ Imagine a great sphere to be described with its centre at our earth, and with a radius extending all the way from the earth to this last star knowable by man. Every star that we can see, every star whose existence becomes disclosed to us on our photographs, lies inside this sphere; as to the orbs which may lie outside that sphere we can know nothing by direct observation. ”

“ The heavens consist of transparent spheres, and the stars as well as the planets are set in them and remain fixed. The motions of the heavenly bodies are due to the revolutions of the spheres in which they are set. ”

“ Thus the most perfect idea we can possibly acquire of a sphere, is by conceiving an infinite number of straight rays of equal lengths, issuing from the center, as from the eye, spreading every way alike; and circumscribed or wound about at their other extremities with close connected circular threads, or lines, forming a true spherical shell. ”

“ The crystal sphere of thought is as concentrical as the geological structure of the globe. As our soils and{188} rocks lie in strata, concentric strata, so do all men’s thinkings run laterally, never vertically. ”

“ Let a vast sphere be described of such mighty dimensions that it embraces not only all the objects visible to the unaided eye, not only all the objects visible in our most powerful telescopes, but even every object that the most fertile imagination can conceive, what relation must this stupendous sphere bear to the whole of space? The mighty sphere can only be an infinitely small part of space. ”

“ As the curve is the true line of beauty, and as the circle in Egyptian hieroglyphics is ever used as the symbol of renewed life—the type or sign of the generative principle—so the motion produced by the centripetal and centrifugal forces, seems to be that of nature. ”

“ In the eternal music of the spheres we find the perfect scale corresponding to the colours, and in the number, determined by the vibrations of colour and sound, which “underlies every form and guides every sound,” we find the summing-up of the Manifested Universe. ”

“ My Lord, your own wisdom has taught me to aspire to One even more great, more beautiful, and more closely approximate to Perfection than yourself. As you yourself, superior to all Flatland forms, combine many Circles in One, so doubtless there is One above you who combines many Spheres in One Supreme Existence, surpassing even the Solids of Spaceland. ”

“ For in these the hollow convexity everywhere bends on itself, and leans upon the earth as its centre. Whereas the earth rises up solid and dense, like something that swells up and is protruded outwards. The heavens bend towards the centre, while the earth goes from the centre, the continual rolling of the heavens about it forcing its immense globe into the form of a sphere. ”

“ The sun’s rays, striking at all angles a sphere, that from moment to moment presents and withdraws different parts of its surface, and each of them for a different time daily throughout the year, would produce a considerable variety of changes even were the sphere uniform. ”

“ That every visible figure will be represented by that part of the surface of the sphere, on which it might be projected, the eye being in the centre. And every such visible figure will bear the same ratio to the whole of visible space, as the part of the spherical surface which represents it, bears to the whole spherical surface. ”

“ The dense, the moist, the dark and cold, and all the heaviest things, collect in the centre as the result of the circular motion, and it is from these elements when consolidated that the earth is formed. ”

“ So you see, that except for the thickness of the blind rollers, the Cavorite exterior of the sphere will consist of windows or blinds, whichever you like to call them. Well, when all these windows or blinds are shut, no light, no heat, no gravitation, no radiant energy of any sort will get at the inside of the sphere, it will fly on through space in a straight line, as you say. ”