Tenebrificous

But to fancy any Stars efficiently and poſitively to cauſe cold, is as extravagant and ridiculous as that conceit of Paracelſus, that imagined that it was not the abſence of the Sun but certain Tenebrificous Stars that cauſed Night.

I consider writers in the same view this sage astrologer does the heavenly bodies. Some of them are stars that scatter light as others do darkness. I could mention several authors who are tenebrificous stars of the first magnitude, and point out a knot of gentlemen, who have been dull in consort, and may be looked upon as a dark constellation.

I have a new theory of optics demonſtrating, that darkneſs is cauſed by certain tenebrificous rays oppugning, obtunding, ſheathing, and abſorbing the rays of light.