It is surrounded by a thin flat ring, inclined to the ecliptic, and nowhere touches the body of the planet.

What a wonderful and amazing Scheme have we here of the magnificent Vastness of the Universe! So many Suns, so many Earths.

The rest of the planets have their dress and furniture, nay and their inhabitants too, as well as this Earth of ours.

I esteem his understanding and subtlety highly, but I consider that they have been put to ill use in the greater part of his work, where the author studies things of little use or when he builds on the improbable principle of attraction. Writing about Newton's Principia. Huygens had some time earlier indicated he did not believe the theory of universal gravitation, saying it 'appears to me absurd.'

It is surrounded by a thin flat ring, inclined to the ecliptic, and nowhere touches the body of the planet.

How vast those Orbs must be, and how inconsiderable this Earth, the Theatre upon which all our mighty Designs, all our Navigations, and all our Wars are transacted, is when compared to them. A very fit consideration, and matter of Reflection, for those Kings and Princes who sacrifice the Lives of so many People, only to flatter their Ambition in being Masters of some pitiful corner of this small Spot.

One may conceive light to spread successively, by spherical waves.