Brydone, Patrick; Beckford, William: A Tour Through Sicily And Malta: in a series of letters to William Beckford ; in 2 vol. (Band 2) (1775)

SICILY AND MALTA. 163
other ? for in a clear night we see disiinctly
any particular flar that we look at, al-
though the rays coming from that slar to
our eye is pierced for millions of miles
before it reaches us, by millions of streams
of the same rays, from every other sun
and flar in the universe. Now suppose, in
any other matter that we know of, and
one would imagine there ought at least to
be some sort of analogy; suppose, I say,
we should only attempt to make two
streams pass one another; water, for in-
stance, or air, one of the purest and the
mod fluid substances we are acquainted
with, we find it totally impossible.—The
two streams will mutually interrupt and
incommode one another, and the strongesl
will ever carry off the weakest into its own
dire&ion; but if a stream of light is hit by
ten thousand other streams, moving at the
rate of ten millions of miles in a minute,
it is not even bent by the impression, nor
in the smallest degree diverted from its
M 2 course;