The History of the Heavens

Sketch of this Work,

Idolatry, which is a stain
upon Human Intellect original: "Vernuft"; the Dutch term refers to the power of human reason and ingenuity.; whether it be because the fruit of that investigation is to teach us that the same misconception which populated the Heaven with deities that are phantoms original: "hersenschimmen"; literally "brain-shadows," meaning figments of the imagination or delusions., gave cause to a multitude of errors that still weary the majority of intellects.

After the investigation of the Heaven of the Poets, it is proper that we proceed to those of the Philosophers. Would one indeed believe that Gassendi Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655), a French philosopher who sought to reconcile atomism with Christian doctrine., Descartes, and so many other great logicians original: "Reedenkunstenaers"; literally "artists of reason," referring to those skilled in the art of logic and philosophy., had composed the World on principles just as destructive as the Poets have done? and that their Atoms, or indivisible particles; their primary matter; their general Laws, of which they in the composition of Heaven and Ear-