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The sun and moon and the stars generally were not of independent origin and later absorbed within our world,
[such parts of it at least as serve at all for its defence]; but they at once began to take form and grow
[and so too did earth and sea]
1
by the accretions and whirling motions of certain substances of finest texture, of the nature either of wind or fire, or of both; for thus sense itself suggests.
The size of the sun and the remaining stars relatively to us is just as great as it appears.
2
[
This he states in the eleventh book
On Nature. For, says he, if it had diminished in size on account of the distance, it would much more have diminished its brightness; for indeed there is no distance more proportionate to this diminution of size than is the distance at which the brightness begins to diminish.] But in itself and actually it may be a little larger or a little smaller, or precisely as great as it is seen to be. For so too fires of which we have experience are seen by sense when we see them at a distance. And every objection brought against this part of the theory will easily be met by anyone who attends to plain facts, as I show in my work
On Nature.
Vitae philosophorum. Diogenes Laertius. R. D. Hicks (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1925.
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