"Due to the genius and labours of Newton almost all the problems presented by the motions of the planets had been mastered. Newton had shown for all time that these motions could be completely accounted for if it were assumed that the same laws of nature, and in particular gravity, operated in the celestial realm as well as in the terrestrial. Although the old Aristotelian distinction between the corrupt earth and the incorruptible heavens was thus finally abandoned, the stellar realm still lay beyond the range of scientific investigation. The natural step, taken by Digges and Bruno, of likening the stars to the sun and scattering them throughout space was still only a step of the imagination."