of Venus and Earth from the sun as infinitely great.
By combination of several bodies, that might be encountered by the light ray on its way, the results would be somewhat greater; but certainly always imperceptible for our observations.
- Thus it is proven: that it is not necessary, at least at the current state of practical astronomy, to consider the perturbation of light rays by attracting celestial bodies.
Now I must anticipate several objections, that possibly could raised against me.
One will notice, that I departed from the ordinary method, because I specified several general properties of curved lines before the calculation; which is what usually happens only after, and which might also could have happened at this place. Yet the calculation was very shortened by that, and why should we calculate, when that what has to be proven, can be shown much more evident by a little reasoning?
Hopefully no one finds it problematic, that I treat a light ray almost as a ponderable body. That light rays possess all absolute properties of matter, can be seen at the phenomenon of aberration, which is only possible when light rays are really material. — And furthermore, we cannot think of things that exist and act on our senses, without having the properties of matter. —
| nihil est quod possis dicere ab omni corpore seiunctum secretumque esse ab inani,
Lucretius de nat. rer. I, 431
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Furthermore I don't think that it is necessary for me to apologize, that I published this investigation; since the result leads to the imperceptibility of all perturbations. Because it also must be even nearly as important for us to know what exists according to the theory,
