“Singula [1168]nonnulli credunt quoque sidera posse
        Dici orbes, terramque appellant sidus opacum,
        Cui minimus divum praesit.”------

       “Some persons believe each star to be a world, and this earth an
        opaque star, over which the least of the gods presides.”

[1169]Gregorius Tholsanus makes seven kinds of ethereal spirits or angels, according to the number of the seven planets, Saturnine, Jovial, Martial, of which Cardan discourseth lib. 20. de subtil. he calls them substantias primas, Olympicos daemones Tritemius, qui praesunt Zodiaco, &c., and will have them to be good angels above, devils beneath the Moon, their several names and offices he there sets down, and which Dionysius of Angels, will have several spirits for several countries, men, offices, &c., which live about them, and as so many assisting powers cause their operations, will have in a word, innumerable, as many of them as there be stars in the skies. [1170]Marcilius Ficinus seems to second this opinion, out of Plato, or from himself, I know not, (still ruling their inferiors, as they do those under them again, all subordinate, and the nearest to the earth rule us, whom we subdivide into good and bad angels, call gods or devils, as they help or hurt us, and so adore, love or hate) but it is most likely from Plato, for he relying wholly on Socrates, quem mori potius quam mentiri voluisse scribit, whom he says would rather die than tell a falsehood, out of Socrates’ authority alone, made nine kinds of them:  which opinion belike Socrates took from Pythagoras, and he from Trismegistus, he from Zoroastes, first God, second idea, 3.  Intelligences, 4.  Arch-Angels, 5.  Angels, 6.  Devils, 7.  Heroes, 8.  Principalities, 9.  Princes:  of which some were absolutely good, as gods, some bad, some indifferent inter deos et homines, as heroes and daemons, which ruled men, and were called genii, or as [1171]Proclus and Jamblichus will, the middle betwixt God and men.  Principalities and princes, which commanded and swayed kings and countries; and had several places in the spheres perhaps, for as every sphere is higher, so hath it more excellent inhabitants:  which belike is that Galilaeus a Galileo and Kepler aims at in his nuncio Syderio, when he will have [1172]Saturnine and Jovial inhabitants:  and which Tycho Brahe doth in some sort touch or insinuate in one of his epistles:  but these things [1173]Zanchius justly explodes, cap. 3. lib. 4. P. Martyr, in 4.  Sam. 28.

So that according to these men the number of ethereal spirits must needs be infinite:  for if that be true that some of our mathematicians say:  if a stone could fall from the starry heaven, or eighth sphere, and should pass every hour an hundred miles, it would be 65 years, or more, before it would come to ground, by reason of the great distance of heaven from earth, which contains as some say 170 millions 800 miles, besides those other heavens, whether they be crystalline or watery which Maginus adds, which peradventure holds as much more, how many such spirits may it contain?  And yet for all this [1174]Thomas Albertus, and most hold that there be far more angels than devils.