[T]hose persons seem to apply their thoughts but to a very indifferent purpose in the study of Nature, that overlook this part of Astronomy, from whe… - David Gregory

Upon this account it is, that every Problem in the Terrestrial Physics is very operose and perplex'd, on the contrary, in the Celestial Physics, much more easy and simple; tho' even the latter has its difficulties, arising from the different distances and magnitudes of the Celestial Bodies, For the Fix'd Stars are so vastly distant asunder, that they have no mutual action upon each other, observable by us...

These notions Anaximenes received from Anaximander, Anaximander from Thales himself, who was the Head and Founder of the Ionic Philosophy; and spread this opinion of the Gravity of the Fix'd Stars among his Sect.

[W]ith this one problem... three years ago, after the above was published, Gottfried Leibniz... produced a construction... in terms of his system—not without the blemish of paralogism.