- Alfirk (stars.astro.illinois.edu)
ALFIRK (Beta Cephei). In mythology, Cepheus (the King) pales beside Cassiopeia (the Queen), who is central to the story of Andromeda and Perseus. And so does his constellation, which is the faintest of those of the myth. Yet dim Cepheus is not without glory.
- But, on examination, I found that, as for Logic, its syllogisms and the majority of its other precepts are of avail rather in the communication of what we already know, or even as the Art of Lully, in speaking without judgment of things of which we are ignorant, than in the investigation of the unknown; and although this Science contains indeed a number of correct and very excellent precepts, there are, nevertheless, so many others, and these either injurious or superfluous, mingled with the former, that it is almost quite as difficult to effect a severance of the true from the false as it is to extract a Diana or a Minerva from a rough block of marble.