6. Around the great system of the sun, and of its wandering orbs, and of the moons which accompany them, shine innumerable stars, which constitute our starry heaven, divided into twelve signs, according to the sections of the zodiac, and make visible its immensity. All these stars remain fixed, and, as images of the great sun, immovable in their central stations, they also occupy a kind of plane constructed by their rays, which they subject and ascribe to themselves as their own proper universe. There are therefore as many universes as there are stars encompassing and crowning our world, greater and lesser, according to the strength and quantity of light emitted from them.
[2] These heavenly circles mutually press and bind each other by contact, and by continual interweavings enfold together a heavenly sphere, and by infinite orbits complete a form which is the exemplar of all spheres and forms, in which the starry orbs each and all most harmoniously conspire to one and the same end, namely, that they may establish and strengthen each other.
(There are as many lesser universes as stars, which, harmoniously joined together, constitute the heavenly firmament.)
By virtue of this union resulting from the perfection of the form, this complex of universes is called the firmament; 1 for in a grand body thus consociated, no member claims anything to itself as its own, unless it be of such a quality that it can inflow from what is general into what concerns itself, and again, as by an orbit, can reflow into what concerns the other universes, or into what is general; on which account also they do not confine their lights and torches to their own sphere, but diffuse them even into the opaque bodies of the solar world, and into our earth, and when the setting sun causes night in the hemisphere they supply his place.
(The form which the universe of stars constitutes.)
Nevertheless, that the form resulting from the connecting series of all the starry universes, is the exemplar and idea of all forms, may appear not only from this, that it serves as the firmament of the whole heaven, but also from this, that the first substances of the world, and the powers of its nature, gave birth to those universes, from which, and their cooperation, nothing but what is most perfect flows forth; this is confirmed also by the distances of the stars from each other, preserved for so many ages, without the least change intervening. Such forms protect themselves by their own proper virtue, for they breathe something perpetual and infinite; nevertheless, they cannot be comprehended as to their quality, except by lower or lowest forms, the knowledge of which we have procured to ourselves from objects which affect the sight of the eye, and further, by continual abstractions of the imperfections under which these forms labor.
(The definition of forms: the angular, spherical, spiral, vortical, celestial, etc.)
[2] But let us view these forms in their examples: the lowest form, or the form proper to earthly substances, is that which is determined by mere angular, and at the same time by plane subjects, whatsoever be their figure, provided they flow together into a certain form; this, therefore, is to be called an ANGULAR Foam, the proper object of our geometry. From this form we are enabled to contemplate the next higher form, or the form perpetually angular, which is the same as the CIRCULAR or SPHERICAL Foam; for this latter is more perfect than the other in this respect, that its circumference is, as it were, a perpetual plane, or infinite angle, because totally void of planes and angles; therefore also it is the measure of all angular forms, for we measure angles and planes by sections and sines of a circle.
[3] From these considerations we see, that into this latter form something infinite or perpetual has insinuated itself, which does not exist in the former, namely, the circular orbit, whose end and beginning cannot be marked. In the circular or spherical form, again, we are enabled to contemplate a certain higher form, which may be called the perpetually circular, or simply the SPIRAL FORM; for to this form is still further added something perpetual or infinite, which is not in the former, namely, that its diameters are not bounded or terminated in a certain centre, neither are they simple lines, but they terminate in a certain circumference of a circle or surface of a sphere, which serves it as a centre, and that its diameters are bent into a species of a certain curve, by which means this form is the measure of a circular form or forms, as the circular is the measure of the angular.
[4] In this spiral form we are enabled to view a still higher kind of form, which may be called the perpetually spiral or VORTICAL FORM, in which again something perpetual or infinite is found which was not in the former; for the former had reference to a circle as to a kind of infinite centre, and from this, by its diameters, to a fixed centre as to its limit or boundary; but the latter has reference to a spiral form as a centre, by lines perpetually circular; this form manifests itself especially in magnetic action, and is the measure of the spiral form for the reason above mentioned concerning inferior forms. In this, lastly, may be viewed the highest form of nature, or the perpetually vortical form, which is the same as the CELESTIAL FORM, in which almost all boundaries are, as it were, erased, as so many imperfections, and still more perpetuities or infinities are put on; wherefore this form is the measure of the vortical form, consequently the exemplar or idea of all inferior forms, from which the inferior descend and derive birth as from their beginning, or from the form of forms. That this is the case with the formations of things will be demonstrated, God willing, in the doctrine of forms, and the doctrine of order and of degrees adjoined to it.
[5] From this form those faculties and virtues result, by which one thing regards another as well as itself, nor is there anything but what consults the general strength and concord, for in that form there is not given any fixed centre, but as many centres as there are points, so that all its determinations, taken together, exist from mere centres or representations of a centre, by which means nothing can be respected as proper to it, unless it be of such a quality that from what is general, or from all the centres, which taken together produce what is general, it may inflow into itself as a similar centre, and may reflow through an orbit for the benefit of all, or into what is general. This indeed must of necessity appear strange at first view, because it is fetched from far beyond the objects of our sight; nevertheless, that the case is so, is clear from a consideration of all phenomena traced up to their causes and their principles; especially from the animate body, where such an arrangement of parts is everywhere to be met with that while each is a centre in itself it is yet related to the terminations of near or remote parts in a kind of circumference, diameter, or axis; the eye presents to us a still more evident idea of these phenomena in the ether modified by rays.
(In the superior forms there is a perpetual centre or a perpetual looking to centres.)
Fotnoter:
1. This form, which the stars with their universes determine or co-effect by intermixture and harmony with each other, and which on that account is called celestial, cannot at all be acknowledged as the most perfect of all forms in the world, if we depend only on the view presented to the spectator's eye en this globe of earth; for the eye does not penetrate into the distances of one star from another, but views them as placed in a kind of expanse, one beside another; hence they appear as without order, like a heap without arrangement.
