move And as to the motion by a right line they must grant us that Nature maketh use of it to reduce the small parts of the Earth Water Air Fire and every other integral Mundane body to their Whole when any of them by chance are separated and so transported out of their proper place if also haply some circular motion might not be found to be more convenient to make this restitution In my judgment this primary position answers much better even according to Aristotles own method to all the other consequences than to attribute the straight motion to be an intrinsick and natural principle of the Elements Which is manifest for that if I aske the Peripatetick if being of opinion that Coelestial bodies are incorruptibe and eternal he believeth that the Terrestial Globe is not so but corruptible and mortal so that there shall come a time when the Sun and Moon and other Stars continuing their beings and operations the Earth shall not be found in the World but shall with the rest of the Elements be destroyed and annihilated I am certain that he would answer me no therefore generation and corruption is in the parts and not in the whole and in the parts very small and superficial which are as it were incensible in comparison of the whole masse And because Aristotle deduceth generation and corruption from the contrariety of streight motions let us remit such motions to the parts which onely change and decay and to the whole Globe and Sphere of the Elements let us ascribe either the circular motion or a perpetual consistance in its proper place the only affections apt for perpetuation and maintaining of perfect order This which is spoken of the Earth may be said with the same reason of Fire and of the greatest part of the Air to which Elements the Peripateticks are forced to ascribe for intrinsical and natural a motion wherewith they were never yet moved nor never shall be and to call that motion preternatural to them wherewith if they move at all they do and ever shall move This I say because they assign to the Air and Fire the motion upwards wherewith those Elements were never moved but only some parts of them and those were so moved onely in order to the recovery of their perfect constitution when they were out of their natural places and on the contrary they call the circular motion preternatural to them though they are thereby incessantly moved forgeting as it seemeth what Aristotle oft inculcateth that nothing violent can be permanent SIMPL. To all these we have very pertinent answers which I for this time omit that we may come to the more particular reasons and sensible experiments which ought in conclusion to be opposed as Aristotle saith well to whatever humane reason can present us with SAGR. What hath been spoken hitherto serves to clear up unto us which of the two general discourses carrieth with it most of probability I mean that of Aristotle which would perswade us that the sublunary bodies are by nature generable and corruptible c. and therefore most different from the essence of Coelestial bodies which are impassible ingenerable incorruptible c. drawn from the diversity of simple motions or else this of Salviatus who supposing the integral parts of the World to be disposed in a perfect constitution excludes by necessary consequence the right or straight motion of simple natural bodies as being of no use in nature and esteems the Earth it self also to be one of the Coelestial bodies adorn'd with all the prerogatives that agree with them which last discourse is hitherto much more likely in my judgment than that other Therefore resolve Simplicius to produce all the particular reasons experiments and observations as well Natural as Astronomical that may serve to perswade us that the Earth differeth from the Coelestial bodies is immoveable and situated in the Centre of the World and what ever else excludes its moving like to the Planets as Jupiter or the Moon c. And Salviatus will be pleased to be so civil as to answer to them one by one SIMPL. See here for a begining two most convincing Arguments to demonstrate the Earth to be most different from the Coelestial bodies First the bodies that are generable corruptible alterable c. are quite different from those that are ingenerable incorruptible unalterable c. But the Earth is generable corruptible alterable c. and the Coelestial bodies ingenerable incorruptible unalterable c. Therefore the Earth is quite different from the Coelestial bodies SAGR. By your first Argument you spread the Table with the same Viands which but just now with much adoe were voided SIMPL. Hold a little Sir and take the rest along with you and then tell me if this be not different from what you had before In the former the Minor was proved à priori now you see it proved à posteriori Judg then if it be the same I prove the Minor therefore the Major being most manifest by sensible experience which 〈…〉 that in the Earth there are made continual generations corruptions alterations c. which neither our senses nor the traditions or memories of our Ancestors ever saw an instance of in Heaven therefore Heaven is unalterable c. and the Earth alterable c. and therefore different from Heaven I take my second Argument from a principal and essential accident and it is this That body which is by its nature obscure and deprived of light is divers from the luminous and shining bodies but the Earth is obscure and void of light and the Coelestial bodies splendid and full of light Ergo c. Answer to these Arguments first that we may not heap up too many and then I will alledge others SALV As to the first the stresse whereof you lay upon experience I desire that you would a little more distinctly produce me the alteration which you see made in the Earth and not in Heaven upon which you call the Earth alterable and the Heavens not so SIMPL. I see in the Earth plants and animals continually generating and decaying winds rains tempests storms arising and in a word the aspect of the Earth to be perpetually metamorphosing none of which mutations are to be discern'd in the Coelestial bodies the constitution and figuration of which is most punctually conformable to that they ever were time out of mind without the generation of any thing that is new or corruption of any thing that was old SALV But if you content your self with these visible or to say better seen experiments you must consequently account China and America Coelestial bodies for doubtlesse you never be held in them these alterations which you see here in Italy and that therefore according to your apprehension they are inalterable SIMPL. Though I never did see these alterations sensibly in those places the relations of them are not to be questioned besides that cum eadem
sit ratio totius partium those Countreys being a part of the Earth as well as ours they must of necessity be alterable as these are SALV And why have you not without being put to believe other mens relations examined and observed those alterations with your own eyes SIMPL. Because those places besides that they are not exposed to our eyes are so remote that our sight cannot reach to comprehend therein such like mutations SALV See now how you have unawares discovered the fallacy of your Argument for if you say that the alterations that are seen on the Earth neer at hand cannot by reason of the too great distance be seen in America much lesse can you see them in the Moon which is so many hundred times more remote And if you believe the alterations in Mexico upon the report of those that come from thence what intelligence have you from the Moon to assure you that there is no such alterations in it Therefore from your not seeing any alterations in Heaven whereas if there were any such you could not see them by reason of their too great distance and from your not having intelligence thereof in regard that it cannot be had you ought not to argue that there are no such alterations howbeit from the seeing and observing of them on Earth you well argue that therein such there are SIMPL. I will shew so great mutations that have befaln on the Earth that if any such had happened in the Moon they might very well have been observed here below We find in very antient records that heretofore at the Streights of Gibraltar the two great Mountains Abila and Calpen were continued together by certain other lesse Mountains which there gave check to the Ocean but those Hills being by some cause or other separated and a way being opened for the Sea to break in it made such an inundation that it gave occasion to the calling of it since the Mid-land Sea the greatness whereof considered and the divers aspects the surfaces of the Water and Earth then made had it been beheld afar off there is no doubt but so great a change might have been discerned by one that was then in the Moon as also to us inhabitants of the Earth the like alterations would be perceived in the Moon but we find not in antiquity that ever there was such a thing seen therefore we have no cause to say that any of the Coelestial bodies are alterable c. SALV That so great alterations have hapned in the Moon I dare not say but for all that I am not yet certain but that such changes might occur and because such a mutation could onely represent unto us some kind of variation between the more clear and more obscure parts of the Moon I know not whether we have had on Earth observant Selenographers who have for any considerable number of years instructed us with so exact Selenography as that we should confidently conclude that there hath no such change hapned in the face of the Moon of the figuration of which I find no more particular description than the saying of some that it represents an humane face of others that it is like the muzle of a Lyon and of others that it is Cain with a bundle of thorns on his back therefore to say Heaven is unalterable because that in the Moon or other Coelestial bodies no such alterations are seen as discover themselves on Earth is a bad illation and concludeth nothing SAGR. And there is another odd kind of scruple in this Argument of Simplicius running in my mind which I would gladly have answered therefore I demand of him whether the Earth before the Mediterranian inundation was generable and corruptible or else began then so to be SIMPL. It was doubtless generable and corruptible also before that time but that was so vast a mutation that it might have been observed as far as the Moon SAGR. Go to if the Earth was generable and corruptible before that Inundation why may not the Moon be so likewise without such a change Or why should that be necessary in the Moon which importeth nothing on Earth SALV It is a shrewd question But I am doubtfull that Simplicius a little altereth the Text of Aristotle and the other Peripateticks who say they hold the Heavens unalterable for that they see therein no one star generate or corrupt which is probably a less part of Heaven than a City is of the Earth and yet innumerable of these have been destroyed so as that no mark of them hath remain'd SAGR. I verily believed otherwise and conceited that Simplicius dissembled this exposition of the Text that he might not charge his Master and Consectators with a notion more absurd than the former And what a folly it is to say the Coelestial part is unalterable because no stars do generate or corrupt therein What then hath any one seen a Terrestrial Globe corrupt and another regenerate in its place And yet is it not on all hands granted by Philosophers that there are very few stars in Heaven less than the Earth but very many that are much bigger So that for a star in Heaven to corrupt would be no less than if the whole Terrestrial Globe should be destroy'd Therefore if for the true proof of generation and corruption in the Universe it be necessary that so vast bodies as a star must corrupt and regenerate you may satisfie your self and cease your opinion for I assure you that you shall never see the Terrestrial Globe or any other integral body of the World to corrupt or decay so that having been beheld by us for so many years past they should so dissolve as not to leave any footsteps of them SALV But to give Simplicius yet fuller satisfaction and to reclaim him if possible from his error I affirm that we have in our age new accidents and observations and such that I question not in the least but if Aristotle were now alive they would make him change his opinion which may be easily collected from the very manner of his discoursing For when he writeth that he esteemeth the Heavens inalterable c. because no new thing was seen to be begot therein or any old to be dissolved he seems implicitely to hint unto us that when he should see any such accident he would hold the contrary and 〈◊〉 as indeed it is meet sensible experiments to natural reason for had he not made any reckoning of the senses he would not then from the not seeing of any sensible mutation have argued immutability SIMPL. Aristotle deduceth his principal Argument à priori shewing the necessity of the inalterability of Heaven by natural manifest and clear principles and then stablisheth the same à posteriori by sense and the traditions of the antients SALV This you speak of is the Method he hath observed in delivering his Doctrine but I do not bethink it yet to be that wherewith he
invented it for I do believe for certain that he first procured by help of the senses such experiments and observations as he could to assure him as much as it was possible of the conclusion and that he afterwards sought out the means how to demonstrate it For this is the usual course in demonstrative Sciences and the reason thereof is because when the conclusion is true by help of resolutive Method one may hit upon some proposition before demonstrated or come to some principle known per se but if the conclusion be false a man may proceed in infinitum and never meet with any truth already known but very oft he shall meet with some impossibility or manifest absurdity Nor need you question but that Pythagoras along time before he found the demonstration for which he offered the Hecatomb had been certain that the square of the side subtending the right angle in a rectangle triangle was equal to the square of the other two sides and the certainty of the conclusion conduced not a little to the investigating of the demonstration understanding me alwayes to mean in demonstrative Sciences But what ever was the method of Aristotle and whether his arguing à priori preceded sense à posteriori or the contrary it sufficeth that the same Aristotle preferreth as hath been oft said sensible experiments before all discourses besides as to the Arguments à priori their force hath been already examined Now returning to my purposed matter I say that the things in our times discovered in the Heavens are and have been such that they may give absolute satisfaction to all Philosophers forasmuch as in the particular bodies and in the universal expansion of Heaven there have been and are continually seen just such accidents as we call generations and corruptions being that excellent Astronomers have observed many Comets generated and dissolved in parts higher than the Lunar Orb besides the two new Stars Anno 1572 and Anno 1604 without contradiction much higher than all the Planets and in the face of the Sun it self by help of the Telescope certain dense and obscure substances in semblance very like to the foggs about the Earth are seen to be produced and dissolved and many of these are so vast that they far exceed not only the Mediterranian Streight but all Affrica and Asia also Now if Aristotle had seen these things what think you he would have said and done Simplicius SIMPL. I know not what Aristotle would have done or said that was the great Master of all the Sciences but yet I know in part what his Sectators do and say and ought to do and say unlesse they would deprive themselves of their guide leader and Prince in Philosophy As to the Comets are not those Modern Astronomers who would make them Coelestial convinced by the Anti-Tycho yea and overcome with their own weapons I mean by way of Paralaxes and Calculations every way tryed concluding at the last in favour of Aristotle that they are all Elementary And this being overthrown which was as it were their foundation have these Novellists any thing more wherewith to maintain their assertion SALV Hold a little good Simplicius this modern Author what saith he to the new Stars Anno 1572 and 1604 and to the Solar spots for as to the Comets I for my own particular little care to make them generated under or above the Moon nor did I ever put much stresse on the loquacity of Tycho nor am I hard to believe that their matter is Elementary and that they may elevate sublimate themselves at their pleasure without meeting with any obstacle from the impenetrability of the Peripatetick Heaven which I hold to be far more thin yielding and subtil than our Air and as to the calculations of the Parallaxes first the uncertainty whether Comets are subject to such accidents and next the inconstancy of the observations upon which the computations are made make me equally suspect both those opinions and the rather for that I see him you call Anti-Tycho sometimes stretch to his purpose or else reject those observations which interfere with his design SIMPL. As to the new Stars Anti-Tycho extricates himself finely in three or four words saying That those modern new Stars are no certain parts of the Coelestial bodies and that the adversaries if they will prove alteration and generation in those superior bodies must shew some mutations that have been made in the Stars described so many ages past of which there is no doubt but that they be Coelestial bodies which they can never be able to do Next as to those matters which some affirm to generate and dissipate in the face of the Sun he makes no mention thereof wherefore I conclude that he believed them fictious or the illusions of the Tube or at most some petty effects caused by the Air and in brief any thing rather than matters Coelestial SALV But you Simplicius what answer could you give to the opposition of these importunate spots which are started up to disturb the Heavens and more than that the Peripatetick Philosophy It cannot be but that you who are so resolute a Champion of it have found some reply or solution for the same of which you ought not to deprive us SIMPL. I have heard sundry opinions about this particular One saith They are Stars which in their proper Orbs like as Venus and Mercury revolve about the Sun and in passing under it represent themselves to us obscure and for that they are many they oft happen to aggregate their parts together and afterwards seperate again Others believe them to be äerial impressions others the illusions of the chrystals and others other things But I incline to think yea am verily perswaded That they are an aggregate of many several opacous bodies as it were casually concurrent among themselves And therefore we often see that in one of those spots one may number ten or more such small bodies which are of irregular figures and seem to us like flakes of snow or flocks of wooll or moaths flying they vary fire amongst themselves and one while sever another while meet and most of all beneath the Sun about which as about their Centre they continually move But yet must we not therefore grant that they are generated or dissolved but that at sometimes they are hid behind the body of the Sun and at other times though remote from it yet are they not seen for the vicinity of the immeasurable light of the Sun in regard that in the eccentrick Orb of the Sun there is constituted as it were an Onion composed of many folds one within another each of which being studded with certain small spots doth move and albeit their motion at first seemeth inconstant and irregular yet neverthelesse it is said at last to be observed that the very same spots as before do within a determinate time return again This seemeth to me the fittest answer
invisible therefore we may discourse of the Heavens and Sun with more certainty than Aristolte SAGR. I see into the heart of Simplicius and know that he is much moved at the strength of these so convincing Arguments but on the other side when he considereth the great authority which Aristotle hath won with all men and remembreth the great number of famous Interpreters which have made it their business to explain his sense and seeth other Sciences so necessary and profitable to the publick to build a great part of their esteem and reputation on the credit of Aristotle he is much puzzled and perplexed and methinks I hear him say To whom then should we repair for the decision of our controversies if Aristotle were removed from the chair What other Author should we follow in the Schools Academies and Studies What Philosopher hath writ all the parts of Natural Philosophy and that so methodically without omitting so much as one single conclusion Shall we then overthrow that Fabrick under which so many passengers find shelter Shall we destroy that Asylum that Prytaneum wherein so many Students meet with commodious harbour where without exposing themselves to the injuries of the air with the onely turning over of a few leaves one may learn all the secrets of Nature Shall we dismantle that fort in which we are safe from all hostile assaults But I pitie him no more than I do that Gentleman who with great expence of time and treasure and the help of many hundred artists erects a very sumptuous Pallace and afterwards beholds it ready to fall by reason of the bad foundation but being extremely unwilling to see the Walls stript which are adorned with so many beautifull Pictures or to suffer the columns to fall that uphold the stately Galleries or the gilded roofs chimney-pieces the freizes the cornishes of marble with so much cost erected to be ruined goeth about with girders props shoars butterasses to prevent their subversion SALV But alass Simplicius as yet fears no such fall and I would undertake to secure him from that mischief at a far less charge There is no danger that so great a multitude of subtle and wise Philosophers should suffer themselves to be Hector'd by one or two who make a little blustering nay they will rather without ever turning the points of their pens against them by their silence onely render them the object of universal scorn and contempt It is a fond conceit for any one to think to introduce new Philosophy by reproving this or that Author it will be first necessary to new-mold the brains of men and make them apt to distinguish truth from falshood A thing which onely God can do But from one discourse to another whither are we stray'd your memory must help to guide me into the way again SIMPL. I remember very well where we left We were upon the answer of Anti-Tycho to the objections against the immutability of the Heavens among which you inserted this of the Solar spots not spoke of by him and I believe you intended to examine his answer to the instance of the New Stars SALV Now I remember the rest and to proceed Methinks there are some things in the answer to Anti-Tycho worthy of reprehension And first if the two New Stars which he can do no less than place in the uppermost parts of the Heavens and which were of a long duration but finally vanished give him no obstruction in maintaining the inalterability of Heaven in that they were not certain parts thereof nor mutations made in the antient Stars why doth he set himself so vigorously and earnestly against the Comets to banish them by all ways from the Coelestial Regions Was it not enough that he could say of them the same which he spoke of the New stars to wit that in regard they were no certain parts of Heaven nor mutations made in any of the Stars they could no wise prejudice either Heaven or the Doctrine of Aristotle Secondly I am not very well satisfied of his meaning when he saith that the alterations that should be granted to be made in the Stars would be destructive to the prerogative of Heaven namely its incorruptibility c. and this because the Stars are Coelestial substances as is manifest by the consent of every one and yet is nothing troubled that the same alterations should be made without the Stars in the rest of the Coelestial expansion Doth he think that Heaven is no Coelestial substance I for my part did believe that the Stars were called Coelestial bodies by reason that they were in Heaven or for that they were made of the substance of Heaven and yet I thought that Heaven was more Coelestial than they in like sort as nothing can be said to be more Terrestrial or more fiery than the Earth or Fire themselves And again in that he never made any mention of the Solar spots which have been evidently demonstrated to be produced and dissolved and to be neer the Sun and to turn either with or about the same I have reason to think that this Author probably did write more for others pleasure than for his own satisfaction and this I affirm forasmuch as he having shewn himself to be skilful in the Mathematicks it is impossible but that he should have been convinced by Demonstrations that those substances are of necessity contiguous with the body of the Sun and are so great generations and corruptions that none comparable to them ever happen in the Earth And if such so many and so frequent be made in the very Globe of the Sun which may with reason be held one of the noblest parts of Heaven what should make us think that others may not happen in the other Orbs. SAGR. I cannot without great admiration nay more denial of my understanding hear it to be attributed to natural bodies for a great honour and perfection that they are impassible immutable inalterable c. And on the contrary to hear it to be esteemed a great imperfection to be alterable generable mutable c. It is my opinion that the Earth is very noble and admirable by reason of so many and so different alterations mutations generations c. which are incessantly made therein and if without being subject to any alteration it had been all one vast heap of sand or a masse of Jasper or that in the time of the Deluge the waters freezing which covered it it had continued an immense Globe of Christal wherein nothing had ever grown altered or changed I should have esteemed it a lump of no benefit to the World full of idlenesse and in a word superfluous and as if it had never been in nature and should make the same difference in it as between a living and dead creature The like I say of the Moon Jupiter and all the other Globes of the World But the more I dive into the consideration of the vanity
double to their Lines 304 FLEXURES The necessity and use of Flexures in Animals for varying of their Motions 232 FOSCARINI Foscarini his Reconciling of Scripture Texts with the Copernican Hypothesis 473 G GENERABILITY Generability and Corruptibility are onely amongst Contraries according to Arist. 26 Generability and Alterability are greater perfections in Mundane Bodies then the Contrary Qualities 44 GEOMETRICAL and Geometry Geometrical Demonstrations of the Triple Dimension 4 Geometrical Exactnesse needlesse in Physical Proofs 6 Aristotle taxeth Plato for being too studious of Geometry 334 Peripatetick Phylosophers condemne the Study of Geometry and why 461 GILBERT The Magnetick Phylosophy of Will-Gilbert 364 The Method of Gilbert in his Philosophy 367 GLOBE Our Globe would have been called Stone instead of Earth if that name had been given it in the beginning 367 GOD. God and Nature do employ themselves in caring for Men as if they minded nothing else 333 An Example of Gods care of Man-kind taken from the Sun 333 God hath given all things an inviolable Law to observe 4â— GREAT Great and Small Immense c. are Relative Terms 334 GRAVITY Grave Vide Body Gravity and Levity Rarity and Density are contrary qualities 30 Things Grave had being before the Common Centre of Gravity 221 Gravity and Levity of Bodies defined 493 GUN and Gunnery The Reason why a Gun should seem to carry farther towards the West than towards the East 148 The Revolution of the Earth supposed the Ball in the Gun erected perpendicularly doth not move by a perpendicular but an inclined Line 155 It is ingenuously demonstrated that the Earths Motion supposed the Shot of Great Guns ought to vary no more than in its Rest. 161 The Experiment of a Running Chariot to find out the difference of Ranges in Gunnery 148 A Computation in Gunnery how much the Ranges of Great Shot ought to vary from the Mark the Earths Motion being Granted 160 H HEAVEN Heaven an Habitation for the Immortal Gods 26 Heavens Immutability evident to Sense 26 Heaven Immutable because there never was any Mutation seen in it 34 One cannot saith Aristotle speak confidently of Heaven by reason of its great distance 42 The substance of the Heavens impenetrable according to Aristotle 54 The Substance of Heaven Intangible 55 Many things may be in Heaven that are Invisible to us 334 There are more Documents in the Open Book of Heaven than Vulgar Wits are able to Penetrate 444 Heaven and Earth ever mutually opposed to each other 480 Which are really the Greater Lights in Heaven and which the lesser 484 Heaven is not composed of a fifth Essence differing from the Matter of inferiour Bodies 494 Heaven is no Solid or Dense Body but Rare 494 Christ at his Incarnation truly descended from Heaven and at his Ascension truly ascended into Heaven 496 Of the First Second and Third Heaven 497 Heaven in the Sense of Copernicus is the same with the most tenuous Aether but different from Paradice which excells all the Heavens 499 HELL Hell is in the Centre of the Earth not of the World 480 HELIX The Helix about the Cylinder may be said to be a Simple Line 7 HYPOTHESIS The true Hypothesis may dispatch its Revolutions in a shorter time in lesser Circles than in greater the which is proved by two Examples 410 I JEST A Jest put upon one that offered to sell a certain Secret of holding Correspondence at a Thousand Miles distance 79 A Jest of a certain Statuary 94 IMPOSSIBILITY and Impossibilities Nature attempts not Impossibilities 10 To seek what would follow upon an Impossibility is Folly 22 INCORRUPTIBILITY Incorruptibility esteemed by the Vulgar out of their fear of Death 45 INFINITY Of Infinity the Parts are not one greater than another although they are comparatively unequal 106 INSTRUMENT and Instruments Instruments Astronomical very subject to Errour 262 Copernicus understood not some things for want of Instruments 338 A proof of the small credit that is to be given to Astronomical Instruments in Minute Observations 351 Ptolomy did not confide in an Instrument made by Archimedes 352 Instruments of Tycho made with great Expence 352 What Instruments are most apt for exact Observations 352 INVENTORS The First Inventors and Observers of things ought to be admired 370 JOSHUAH The Miracle of Joshuah in commanding the Sun to stand still contradicts the Ptolomaick System 456 Joshuahs Miracle admirably agreeth with the Pythagorick Systeme 457 IRON It s proved that Iron consists of parts more subtil pure and compact than the Magnet 370 JUPITER Jupiter and Saturn do encompasse the Earth and the Sun 258 Jupiter augments lesse by Irradiation than the Dog-Star 305 K KEPLER The Argument of Kepler in favour of Copernicus 242 An Explanation of the true Sense of Kepler and his Defence 243 The feigned Answer of Kepler couched in an Artificial Irony 244 Kepler is with respect blamed 422 Keplers reconciling of Scripture Texts whith the Copernican Hypothesis 461 KNOW c. The having a perfect Knowledge of nothing maketh some beleeve they understand all things 84 Gods manner of Knowing different from that of Man 87 The great Felicity for which they are to be envied who perswade themselves that they Know every thing 164 Our Knowledge is a kind of Reminiscence according to Plato 169 L LIGHT Light reflected from the Earth into the Moon 52 The Reflex Light of uneven Bodies is more universal than that of the smooth and why 62 The more rough Superficies make greater Reflection of Light than the lesse rough 65 Perpendicular Rays of Light illuminate more than the Oblique and why 65 The more Oblique Rays of Light illuminate lesse and why 65 Light or Luminous Bodies appear the brighter in an Obscure Ambient 74 LINE The Right Line and Circumference of an infinite Circle are the same thing 342 LAWYERS Contentious Lawyers that are retained in an ill Cause keep close to some expression fallen from the adverse party at unawares 324 LOOKING-GLASSES Flat Looking-Glasses cast forth their Reflection towards but one place but the Spherical every way 39 LYNCEAN The Lyncean Academick the first Discoverer of the Solar spots and all the other Celestial Novelties 312 The History of his proceedings for a long time about the Observation of the Solar Spots 312 M MAGNET Many properties in the Magnet 367 The Magnet armed takes up more Iron than when unarmed 369 The true cause of the Multiplication of Vertue in the Magnet by means of the Arming 370 A sensible proof of the Impurity of the Magnet 371 The several Natural Motions of the Magnet 374 Philosophers are forced to confesse that the Magnet is compounded of Celestial Substances and of Elementary 375 The Error of those who call the Magnet a mixt Body and the Terrestrial Globe a simple Body 375 An improbable Effect admired by Gilbertus in the Magnet 376 MAGNETICK Philosophy The Magnetick Philosophy of William Gilbert 364 MAGNITUDE The Magnitude of the Orbs and the Velocity of the Motions of Planets
after another Systeme to the discovery of which he doth very earnestly exhort them Now can there a better or more commodious Hypothesis be devised than this of Copernicus For this Cause many Modern Authors are induced to approve of and follow it but with much haesitancy and fear in regard that it seemeth in their Opinion so to contradict the Holy Scriptures as that it cannot possibly be reconciled to them Which is the Reason that this Opinion hath been long supprest and is now entertained by men in a modest manner ad as it were with a veiled Face according to that advice of the Poet Judicium populi nunquam contempseris unus Ne nullis placeas dum vis contemnere multos Upon consideration of which out of my very great love towards the Sciences and my ardent desire to see the encrease and perfection of them and the Light of Truth freed from all Errours and Obscurities I began to argue with my self touching this Point after this manner This Opinion of the Pythagoreans is either true or false If false it ought not to be mentioned and deserves not to be divulged If true it matters not though it contradict all as well Philosophers as Astronomers And though for its establishment and reducement to use a new Philosophy and Astronomy founded upon new Principles and Hypothese should be constituted For the Authority of Sacred Scripture will not oppose it neither doth one Truth contradict another If therefore the Opinion of Pythagoras be true without doubt God hath disposed and dictated the words of of Holy Writ in such a manner that they may admit an apt sense and reconciliation with that Hypothesis Being moved by these Reasons and the probability of the said Opinion I thought good to try whether Texts of Sacred Scripture might be expounded according to Theological and Physical Principles and might be reconciled to it so that in regard that hitherto it hath been held probable it may in after times coming without scruple to be acknowledged for true advance it self and appear in publick with an uncovered Face without any mans prohibition and may lawfully and freely hold a Sacred intelligence with Holy Truth so earnestly coveâ—ed and commended by good Men. Which designe having hitherto been undertaken by none that I know wil I am perswaded be very acceptable to the Studious of these Learnings especially to the most Learned Galilaeo Galilaei chief Mathematician to the most Serene Grand Duke of Tuscany and John Kepler chief Mathematician to his Sacred and invincible Majesty the Emperour and to all that Illustrious and much to be commended Accademy of the Lynceans whom if I mistake not are all of this Opinion Although I doubt not but they and many other Learned Men might easily have found out these or the like Reconciliations of Scriptural expressions to whom nevertheless I have thought fit in respect of that profession which I have undertaken upon the faith of my soul and the propensity that I have towards Truth to offer that of the Poet Nullius addictus jurare in verba Magistri And in testimony of my esteem to them and all the Learned to communicate these my thoughts confidently assuring my self that they will accept them with a Candor equal to that wherewith I have written them Therefore to come to the business All Authorities of Divine Writ which seem to oppose this Opinion are reducible to six Classes The first is of those that affirm the Earth to stand still and not to move as Psal. 92. He framed the round World so sure that it cannot be moved Also Psal. 104. Who laid the Foundations of the Earth that it should not be removed for ever And Ecclesiastes 1. But the Earth abideth for ever And others of the like sense The second is of those which attest the Sun to move and Revolve about the Earth as Psal. 19. In them hath he set a Tabernacle for the Sun which cometh forth as a Bridegroom out of his chamber and rejoyceth as a Gyant to run his Course It cometh forth from the uttermost part of the Heaven and runneth about unto the end of it again and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof And Ecclesiast 1. The Sun riseth and the Sun goeth down and hasteth to the place where he arose it goeth towards the South and turneth about unto the North. Whereupon the Suns Retrogradation is mentioned as a Miracle Isaiah 38. The Sun returned ten degrees And Ecclesiasticus 48. In his time the Sun went backward and lengthened the life of the King And for this reason it is related for a Miracle in the Book of Joshuah that at the Prayers of that great Captain the Sun stood still its motion being forbidden it by him Josh. 10. Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon Now if the Sun should stand still and the Earth move about it its station at that time was no Miracle and if Joshuah had intended that the light of the day should have been prolonged by the Suns splendour he would not have said Sun stand thou still but rather Earth stand thou still The third Classis is of those Authorities which say that Heaven is above and the Earth beneath of which sort is that place of Joel chap. 2. cited by S. Peter in Acts. 2. I will shew wonders in Heaven above and signes in the Earth beneath with others of the like purport Hereupon Christ at his Incarnation is said to come down from Heaven and after his Resurrection to have ascended up into heaven But if the Earth should move about the Sun it would be as one may say in Heaven and consequently would rather be above Heaven than beneath it And this is confirmed For that the Opinion which placeth the Sun in the Centre doth likewise place Mercury above the Sun and Venus above Mercury and the Earth above Venus together with the Moon which revolves about the Earth and therefore the Earth together with the Moon is placed in the third Heaven If therefore in Spherical Bodies as in the World beneath signifies no more than to be neer to the centre and above than to approach the Circumference it must needs follow that for making good of Theological Positions concerning the Ascension and Descension of Christ the Earth is to be placed in the centre and the Sun with the other Heavens in the Circumference and not according to Copernicus whose Hypothesis inverts this Order with which one cannot see how the true Ascension and Descension can be consistent The fourth Classis is of those Authorities which make Hell to be in the Centre of the World which is the Common Opinion of Divines and confirmed by this Reason That since Hell taken in its strict denomination ought to be in the lowest part of the World and since that in a Sphere there is no part lower then the Centre Hell shall be as it were in the Centre of the World which being of a Spherical Figure it must
velocity convenient to the circular motion Betwixt rest and any assigned degree of velocity infinite degrees of less velocity interpose Nature doth not immediately confer a determinate degree of velocity howbeit she could The moveable departing from rest passeth thorow all degrees of velocity without staying in any The ponderous mover descending acquireth impetus sufficient to recarry it to the like height The impetuosity of moveables equally approaching to the centre are equal Vpon an horizontall plane the moveable lieth still The velocity by the inclining plane equal to the velocity by the perpendicular and the motion by the perpendicular swifter than by the inclination Velocities are said to be equal when the spaces passed are proportionate to their time The circular motion is never acquired naturally without right motion precede it Circular motion perpetually uniform The magnitude of the Orbs and the velocity of the motion of the Planets answer proportionably as if descended from the same place Finite and terminate circular motions disorder not the parts of the World In the circular motion every point in the circumference is the begining and end Circular motion onely is uniform Circular motion may be continued perpetually Right motion cannot naturally be perpetual Right motion assigned to natural bodies to reduce them to perfect order when removed from their places Rest onely and circular motion are apt to conserve order Sensible experiments are to be preferred before humane argumentations He who denies sense deserves to be deprived of it Sense sheweth that things grave move to the medium and the light to the concave It is questionable whether descending weights move in a right line The Earth sperical by the conspiration of its parts to its Centre The Sun more probably in the centre of the Vniverse than the Earth Natural inclination of the parts of all the globes of the World to go to their centre The right motion of grave bodies manifest to sense Arguments of Aristotle to prove that grave bodies move with an inclination to arrive at the centre of the Vniverse Heavie bodies move towards the centre of the Earth per accidens To seek what would follow upon an impossibility is folly Coelestial bodies neither heavie nor light according to Aristotle Aristotle cannot equivocate being the inventer of Logick * A famous Italian Painter Paralogism of Aristotle in proving the Earth to be in the Centre of the World The Paralogisme of Aristotle another way discovered Grave bodies may more rationally be affirmed to tend to the Centre of the Earth than of the Vniverse The conditions and attributes which differ the coelestial bodies from Elementary depend on the motions assigned them by Arist. The disputes and contradictions of Philosophers may conduce to the benefit of Philosophy Aristotles discourse to prove the incorruptibility of Heaven Generation corruption is onely amongst contraries according to Arist. To the circular motion no other motion is contrary Heaven an habitation for the immortal Gods Immutability of Heaven evident to sense He proveth that the circular motion hath no contrary It s easier to prove the Earth to move than that corruption is made by contraries Bare transposition of parts may represent bodies under diverse aspâ—cts By denying Principles in the Sciences any Paradox may be maintained * Or Impatible Coelestial Bodies are generable and corruptible because they are ingenerable and incorruptible The forked Syllogism cal'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amongst Coelestial Bodies there is no contrariety Contraries which are the causes of corruption reside not in the same body that corrupteth Coelestial Bodies touch but are not touched by the Elements Gravity levity rarity and density are contrary qualities The stars infinitely surpass the substance of the rest of Heaven in density Rarity density in Coelestial bodies is different from the rarity density of the elements Aristotle defective in assigning the causes why the elements are generable corruptible Arist. Ptolomey make the Terrestrial Globe immoveable It is better to say that the Terrestrial Globe naturally resteth than that it moveth directly downwards * The word is all' ingiù which the Latine version rendreth sursùm which is quite contrary to the Authors sense Right Motion with more reason attributed to the parts than to the whole Elements The Peripateticks improperly assign those motions to the Elements for Natural with which they never were moved and those for Preternatural with which they alwayes are moved Sensible experiments to be preferred to humane Arguments Heaven immutable because there never was any mutation seen in it Bodies naturally lucid are different from those which are by nature obscure The Mediterranian Sea made by the separation of Abila and Calpen It s no less impossible for a star to corrupt than for the whole Terrestrial Globe Aristotle would change his opinion did he see the novelties of our age The certainty of the conclusion helpeth by a resolutive method to find the demonstration Pythagoras offered an Hecatomb for a Geometrical demonstration which he found New stars discovered in Heaven Spots generate and dissolve in the face of the Sun Solar spots are bigger than all Asia and Affrick * Astronomers confuted by Anti-Tycho Anti-Tycho wresteth Astronomical observations to his own purpose Sundry opinions touching the Solar spots * The Original saith tempestata si muove which the Latine Translation mistaking Tempestata a word in Heraldry for Tempestato rendereth incitata movetur which signifieth a violent transportmeut as in a storm that of a Ship In natural Sciences the art of Oratory is of no force An Argument that necessarily proveth the Solar spots to generate and dissolve A conclusive demonstration that the spots are contiguous to the body of the Sun The motion of the spots towards the circumference of the Sun appears slow The figure of the spots appears narrow towards the circumference of the Suns discus why * Under this word Friend as also that of Academick Common Friend Galilaeus modestly conceals himself throughout these Dialogues The Solar spots are not spherical but flat like thin plates One cannot saith Aristotle speak confidently of Heaven by reason of its great distance Aristotle prefers sense before ratiocination It s a doctrine more agreeing with Aristotle to say the Heavens are alterable than that which affirms them inalterable We may by help of the Telescope discourse better of coelestical matters than Aristot. himself The Declamationâ— of Simplicius Peripatetick Philosophy unchangeable * Extra Stellas Generability and alteration is a greater perfection in the Worlds bodies than the contrary qualities * Impatible The Earth very noble by reason of the many mutations made therein The Earth unprofitable and full of idlenesse its alterations taken away The Earth more noble than Gold and Jewels Scarcity and plenty enhanse and debase the price of things Incorruptibility esteemed by the vulgar out of their fear of death The disparagers of corruptibility deserve to be turned into Statua's The Coelestial bodies designed to serve
by SIGNORE BARTOLOTTI in that affair of the DIVERSION of FIUME MORTO IX HIS CONSIDERATION upon the DRAINING of the PONTINE FENNS in CALABRIA X. HIS CONSIDERATION upon the DRAINING of the TERRITORIES of BOLOGNA FERRARA and ROMAGNA XI HIS LETTER to D. FERRANTE CESARINI applying his DOCTRINE to the MENSURATION of the LENGTH and DISTRIBUTION of the QUANTITY of the WATERS of RIVERS SPRINGS AQUEDUCTS c. XII D. CORSINUS SUPERINTENDENT of the GENERAL DRAINS and PRESIDENT of ROMAGNA his RELATION of the state of the VVATERS in the TERRITORIES of BOLOGNA and FERRARA A Table of the most observable Persons and Matters mentioned in the Second Part. The CONTENTS of the SECOND TOME PART THE FIRST Treatise I. GALILEUS GALILEUS his MATHEMATICAL DISCOURSES and DEMONSTRATIOMS touching two NEVV SCIENCES pertaining to the MECHANICKS and LOCAL MOTION with an APPENDIX of the CENTRE of GRAVITY of some SOLIDS in Four DIALOGUES II. HIS MECHANICKS a New PEICE III. RHENATUS DES CARTES his MECHANICKS translated from his FRENCH MANUSCRIPT a New PEICE IV. ARCHIMEDES his Tract DE INSIDENTIBUS HUMIDO with the NOTES and DEMONSTRASIONS of NICOLAUS TARTALEUS in Two BOOKS V. GALILEUS his DISCOURSE of the things that move in or upon the WATER VI. NICOLAUS TARTALEUS his INVENTIONS for DIVING UNDER WATER RAISING OF SHIPS SUNK c. in Two BOOKS PART THE SECOND I. EVANGELISTA TORRICELLIUS his DOCTRINE OF PROJECTS and TABLES of the RANGES of GREAT GUNNS of all sorts wherein he detects sundry ERRORS in GUNNERY An EPITOME II. T. S. his EXPERIMENTS of the COMPARATIVE GRAVITY OF BODIES in the AIRE and WATER III. GALILEUS GALILEUS his LIFE in Five BOOKS BOOK I. Containing Five Chapters Chap. 1. His Country 2. His Parents and Extraction 3. His time of Birth 4. His first Education 5. His Masters II. Containing Three Chapters Chap. 1. His judgment in several Learnings 2. His Opinions and Doctrine 3. His Auditors and Scholars III. Containing Four Chapters Chap. 1. His behaviour in Civil Affairs 2. His manner of Living 3. His morall Virtues 4. His misfortunes and troubles IV. Containing Four Chapters Chap. 1. His person described 2. His Will and Death 3. His Inventions 4. His Writings 5. His Dialogues of the Systeme in particular containing Nine Sections Section 1. Of Astronomy in General its Definition Praise Original 2. Of Astronomers a Chronological Catalogue of the most famous of them 3. Of the Doctrine of the Earths Mobility c. its Antiquity and Progresse from Pythagoras to the time of Copernicus 4. Of the Followers of Copernicus unto the time of Galileus 5. Of the severall Systemes amongst Astronomers 6. Of the Allegations against the Copern Systeme in 77 Arguments taken out of Ricciolo with Answers to them 7. Of the Allegations for the Copern Systeme in 50 Arguments 8. Of the Scriptures Authorities produced against and for the Earths mobility 9. The Conclusion of the whole Chapter V. Containing Four Chapters Chap. 1. His Patrons Friends and Emulators 2. Authors judgments of him 3. Authors that have writ for or against him 4. A Conclusion in certain Reflections upon his whole Life A Table of the whole Second TOME GALILAEUS Galilaeus Lyncaeus HIS SYSTEME OF THE WORLD The First Dialogue INTERLOCVTORS SALVIATUS SAGREDUS and SIMPLICIUS SALVIATUS IT was our yesterdayes resolution and agreement that we should to day discourse the most distinctly and particularly we could possible of the natural reasons and their efficacy that have been hitherto alledged on the one or other part by the maintainers of the Positions Aristotelian and Ptolomaique and by the followers of the Copernican Systeme And because Copernicus placing the Earth among the moveable Bodies of Heaven comes to constitute a Globe for the fame like to a Planet it would be good that we began our disputation with the examination of what and how great the energy of the Peripateticks arguments is when they demonstrate that this Hypothesis is impossible Since that it is necessary to introduce in Nature substances different betwixt themselves that is the Coelestial and Elementary that impassible and immortal this alterable and corruptible Which argument Aristotle handleth in his book De Coelo insinuating it first by some discourses dependent on certain general assumptions and afterwards confirming it with experiments and perticular demonstrations following the same method I will propound and freely speak my judgement submitting my self to your censure and particularly to Simplicius a Stout Champion and contender for the Aristotelian Doctrine And the first Step of the Peripatetick arguments is that where Aristotle proveth the integrity and perfection of the World telling us that it is not a simple line nor a bare superficies but a body adorned with Longitude Latitude and Profundity and because there are no more dimensions but these three The World having them hath all and having all is to be concluded perfect And again that by simple length that magnitude is constituted which is called a Line to which adding breadth there is framed the Superficies and yet further adding the altitude or profoundity there results the Body and after these three dimensions there is no passing farther so that in these three the integrity and to so speak totality is terminated which I might but with justice have required Aristotle to have proved to me by necessary consequences the rather in regard he was able to do it very plainly and speedily SIMPL. What say you to the excellent demonstrations in the 2. 3. and 4. Texts after the definition of Continual have you it not first there proved that there is no more but three dimensions for that those three are all things and that they are every where And is not this confirmed by the Doctrine and Authority of the Pythagorians who say that all things are determined by three beginning middle and end which is the number of All And where leave you that reason namely that as it were by the law of Nature this number is used in the sacrifices of the Gods And why being so dictated by nature do we atribute to those things that are three and not to lesse the title of all why of two is it said both and not all unless they be three And all this Doctrine you have in the second Text. Afterwards in the third Ad pleniorem scientiam we read that All the Whole and Perfect are formally one and the same and that therefore onely the Body amongst magnitudes is perfect because it is determined by three which is All and being divisible three manner of waies it is every way divisible but of the others some are dividible in one manner and some in two because according to the number affixed they have their division and continuity and thus one magnitude is continuate one way another two a third namely the Body every way Moreover in the fourth Text doth he not after some other Doctrines prove it by another demonstration Scilicet That no transition is made but
the case is impossible it being clear by the Demonstrations of Aristotle that the coelestial Bodies are impassible impenetrable unpartable c. I answer that none of the conditions whereby Aristotle distinguisheth the Coelestial Bodies from Elementary hath other foundation than what he deduceth from the diversity of the natural motion of those and these insomuch that it being denied that the circular motion is peculiar to Coelestial Bodies and affirmed that it is agreeable to all Bodies naturally moveable it is behoofull upon necessary consequence to say either that the attributes of generable or ingenerable alterable or unalterable partable or unpartable c. equally and commonly agree with all worldly bodies namely as well to the Coelestial as to the Elementary or that Aristotle hath badly and erroneously deduced those from the circular motion which he hath assigned to Coelestial Bodies SIMPL. This manner of argumentation tends to the subversion of all Natural Philosophy and to the disorder and subversion of Heaven and Earth and the whole Universe but I believe the Fundamentals of the Peripateticks are such that we need not fear that new Sciences can be erected upon their ruines SALV Take no thought in this place for Heaven or the Earth neither fear their subversion or the ruine of Philosophy As to Heaven your fears are vain for that which you your self hold unalterable and impassible as for the Earth we strive to enoble and perfect it whilst we make it like to the Coelestial Bodies and as it were place it in Heaven whence your Philosophers have exiled it Philosophy it self cannot but receive benefit from our Disputes for if our conceptions prove true new Discoveries will be made if false the first Doctrine will be more confirmed Rather bestow your care upon some Philosophers and help and defend them for as to the Science it self it cannot but improve And that we may return to our purpose be pleased freely to produce what presents it self to you in confirmation of that great difference which Aristotle puts between the Coelestial Bodies and the Elementary parts of the World in making those ingenerable incorruptible unalterable c. and this corruptible alterable c. SIMPL. I see not yet any need that Aristotle hath of help standing as he doth stoutly and strongly on his feet yea not being yet assaulted much less foiled by you And what ward will you choose in this combate for this first blow Aristotle writeth that whatever is generated is made out of a contrary in some subject and likewise is corrupted in some certain subject from a contrary into a contrary so that observe corruption and generation is never but onely in contraries If therefore to a Coelestial Body no contrary can be assigned for that to the circular motion no other motion is contrary then Nature hath done very well to make that exempt from contraries which was to be ingenerable and incorruptible This fundamental first confirmed it immediately followeth of consequence that it is inaugmentable inalterable impassible and finally eternal and a proportionate habitation to the immortal Deities conformable to the opinion even of all men that have any conceit of the Gods He afterwards confirmeth the same by sense in regard that in all times past according to memory or tradition we see nothing removed according to the whole outward Heaven nor any of its proper parts Next as to the circular motion that no other is contrary to it Aristotle proveth many ways but without reciting them all it is sufficiently demonstrated since simple motions are but three to the medium from the medium and about the medium of which the two right sursum and deorsum are manifestly contrary and because one onely hath onely one for contrary therefore there rests no other motion which may be contrary to the circular You see the subtle and most concluding discourse of Aristotle whereby he proveth the incorruptibility of Heaven SALV This is nothing more save the pure progress of Aristotle by me hinted before wherein besides that I affirm that the motion which you attribute to the Coelestial Bodies agreeth also to the Earth its illation proves nothing I tell you therefore that that circular motion which you assign to Coelestial Bodies suiteth also to the Earth from which supposing that the rest of your discourse were concludent will follow one of these three things as I told you a little before and shall repeat namely either that the Earth it self is also ingenerable and incorruptible as the Coelestial bodies or that the Coelestial bodies are like as the Elementary generable alterable c. or that this difference of motion hath nothing to do with Generation and Corruption The discourse of Aristotle and yours also contain many Propositions not to be lightly admitted and the better to examine them it will be convenient to reduce them to the most abstracted and distinct that can be possible and excuse me Sagredus if haply with some tediousness you hear me oft repeat the same things and fancie that you see me reassume my argument in the publick circle of Disputations You say Generation and Corruption are onely made where there are contraries contraries are onely amongst simple natural bodies moveable with contrary motions contrary motions are onely those which are made by a right line between contrary terms and these are onely two that is to say from the medium and towards the medium and such motions belong to no other natural bodies but to the Earth the Fire and the other two Elements therefore Generation and Corruption is onely amongst the Elements And because the third simple motion namely the circular about the medium hath no contrary for that the other two are contraries and one onely hath but onely one contrary therefore that natural body with which such motion agreeth wants a contrary and having no contrary is ingenerable and incorruptible c. Because where there is no contrariety there is no generation or corruption c. But such motion agreeth onely with the Coelestial bodies therefore onely these are ingenerable incorruptible c. And to begin I think it a more easie thing and sooner done to resolve whether the Earth a most vast Body and for its vicinity to us most tractable moveth with a speedy motion such as its revolution about its own axis in twenty four hours would be than it is to understand and resolve whether Generation and Corruption ariseth from contrariety or else whether there be such things as generation corruption and contrariety in nature And if you Simplicius can tell me what method Nature observes in working when she in a very short time begets an infinite number of flies from a little vapour of the Must of wine and can shew me which are there the contraries you speak of what it is that corrupteth and how I should think you would do more than I can for I profess I cannot comprehend these things Besides
I would very gladly understand how and why these corruptive contraries are so favourable to Daws and so cruel to Doves so indulgent to Stags and so hasty to Horses that they do grant to them many more years of life that is of incorruptibility than weeks to these Peaches and Olives are planted in the same soil exposed to the same heat and cold to the same wind and rains and in a word to the same contrarieties and yet those decay in a short time and these live many hundred years Furthermore I never was thorowly satisfied about this substantial transmutation still keeping within pure natural bounds whereby a matter becometh so transform'd that it should be necessarily said to be destroy'd so that nothing remaineth of its first being and that another body quite differing there-from should be thence produced and if I fancy to my self a body under one aspect and by and by under another very different I cannot think it impossible but that it may happen by a simple transposition of parts without corrupting or ingendring any thing a-new for we see such kinds of Metamorphoses dayly so that to return to my purpose I answer you that inasmuch as you go about to perswade me that the Earth can not move circularly by way of corruptibility and generability you have undertook a much harder task than I that with arguments more difficult indeed but no less concluding will prove the contrary SAGR. Pardon me Salviatus if I interrupt your discourse which as it delights me much for that I also am gravel'd with the same doubts so I fear that you can never conclude the same without altogether digressing from your chief design therefore if it be permitted to proceed in our first argument I should think that it were convenient to remit this question of generation and corruption to another distinct and single conference as also if it shall please you and Simplicius we may do by other particular questions which may fall in the way of our discourse which I will keep in my mind to propose and exactly discuss them some other time Now as for the present since you say that if Aristotle deny circular motion to the Earth in common with other bodies Coelestial it thence will follow that the same which befalleth the Earth as to its being generable alterable c. will hold also of Heaven let us enquire no further if there be such things in nature as generation and corruption or not but let us return to enquire what the Globe of the Earth doth SIMPL. I cannot suffer my ears to hear it question'd whether generation and corruption be in rerum naturâ it being a thing which we have continually before our eyes and whereof Aristotle hath written two whole Books But if you go about to deny the Principles of Sciences and question things most manifest who knows not but that you may prove what you will and maintain any Paradox And if you do not dayly see herbs plants animals to generate and corrupt what is it that you do see Also do you not continually behold contrarieties contend together and the Earth change into Water the Water turn to Air the Air into Fire and again the Air to condense into Clouds Rains Hails and Storms SAGR. Yes we see these things indeed and therefore will grant you the discourse of Aristotle as to this part of generation and corruption made by contraries but if I shall conclude by virtue of the same propositions which are granted to Aristotle that the Coelestial bodies themselves are also generable and corruptible aswell as the Elementary what will you say then SIMPL. I will say you have done that which is impossible to be done SAGR. Go to tell me Simplicius are not these affections contrary to one another SIMPL. Which SAGR. Why these Alterable unalterable passible impassible generable ingenerable corruptible incorruptible SIMPL. They are most contrary SAGR. Well then if this be true and it be also granted that Coelestial Bodies are ingenerable and incorruptible I prove that of necessity Coelestial Bodies must be generable and corruptible SIMPL. This must needs be a Sophism SAGR. Hear my Argument and then censure and resolve it Coelestial Bodies for that they are ingenerable and incorruptible have in Nature their contraries which are those Bodies that be generable and corruptible but where there is contrariety there is also generation and corruption therefore Coelestial Bodies are generable and corruptible SIMPL. Did I not say it could be no other than a Sophism This is one of those forked Arguments called Soritae like that of the Cretan who said that all Cretans were lyars but he as being a Cretan had told a lye in saying that the Cretans were lyars it followed therefore that the Cretans were no lyars and consequently that he as being a Cretan had spoke truth And yet in saying the Cretans were lyars he had said true and comprehending himself as a Cretan he must consequently be a lyar And thus in these kinds of Sophisms a man may dwell to eternity and never come to any conclusion SAGR. You have hitherto censured it it remaineth now that you answer it shewing the fallacie SIMPL. As to the resolving of it and finding out its fallacie do you not in the first place see a manifest contradiction in it Coelestial Bodies are ingenerable and incorruptible Ergo Coelestial Bodies are generable and corruptible And again the contrariety is not betwixt the Coelestial Bodies but betwixt the Elements which have the contrariety of the Motions sursùm and deorsùm and of levity and gravity But the Heavens which move circularly to which motion no other motion is contrary want contrariety and therefore they are incorruptible SAGR. Fair and softly Simplicius this contrariety whereby you say some simple Bodies become corruptible resides it in the same Body which is corrupted or else hath it relation to some other I say if for example humidity by which a piece of Earth is corrupted resides it in the same Earth or in some other bodie which must either be the Air or Water I believe you will grant that like as the Motions upwards and downwards and gravity and levity which you make the first contraries cannot be in the same Subject so neither can moist and dry hot and cold you must therefore consequently acknowledg that when a bodie corrupteth it is occasioned by some quality residing in another contrary to its own therefore to make the Coelestial Body become corruptible it sufficeth that there are in Nature bodies that have a contrariety to that Coelestial body and such are the Elements if it be true that corruptibility be contrary to incorruptibility SIMPL. This sufficeth not Sir The Elements alter and corrupt because they are intermixed and are joyn'd to one another and so may exercise their contrariety but Coelestial bodies are separated from the Elements by which they are not so much as toucht
beholds the Terrestrial Globe with one and the same aspect never deviating from the same SAGR. Oh! when will there be an end put to the new observations and discoveries of this admirable Instrument SALV If this succeed according to the progresse of other great inventions it is to be hoped that in processe of time one may arrive to the sight of things to us at present not to be imagined But returning to our first discourse I say for the sixth resemblance betwixt the Moon and Earth that as the Moon for a great part of time supplies the want of the Suns light and makes the nights by the reflection of its own reasonable clear so the Earth in recompence affordeth it when it stands in most need by reflecting the Solar rayes a very cleer illumination and so much in my opinion greater than that which cometh from her to us by how much the superficies of the Earth is greater than that of the Moon SAGR. Hold there Salviatus hold there and permit me the pleasure of relating to you how at this first hint I have penetrated the cause of an accident which I have a thousand times thought upon but could never find out You would say that the imperfect light which is seen in the Moon especially when it is horned comes from the reflection of the light of the Sun on the Supersicies of the Earth and Sea and that light is more clear by how much the horns are lesse for then the luminous part of the Earth beheld by the Moon is greater according to that which was a little before proved to wit that the luminous part of the Earth exposed to the Moon is alway as great as the obscure part of the Moon that is visible to the Earth whereupon at such time as the Moon is sharp-forked and consequently its tenebrous part great great also is the illuminated part of the Earth beheld from the Moon and its reflection of light so much the more potent SALV This is exactly the same with what I was about to say In a word it is a great pleasure to speak with persons judicious and apprehensive and the rather to me for that whilest others converse and discourse touching Axiomatical truths I have many times creeping into my brain such arduous Paradoxes that though I have a thousand times rehearsed this which you at the very first have of your self apprehended yet could I never beat it into mens brains SIMPL. If you mean by your not being able to perswade them to it that you could not make them understand the same I much wonder thereat and am very confident that if they did not understand it by your demonstration your way of expression being in my judgment very plain they would very hardly have apprehended it upon the explication of any other man but if you mean you have not perswaded them so as to make them believe it I wonder not in the least at this for I confesse my self to be one of those who understand your discourses but am not satisfied therewith for there are in this and some of the other six congruities or resemblances many difficulties which I shall instance in when you have gone through them all SALV The desire I have to find out any truth in the acquist whereof the objections of intelligent persons such as your self may much assist me will cause me to be very brief in dispatching that which remains For a seventh conformity take their reciprocal responsion as well to injuries as favours whereby the Moon which very often in the height of its illumination by the interposure of the Earth betwixt it and the Sun is deprived of light and eclipsed doth by way of revenge in like manner interpose it self between the Earth and the Sun and with its shadow obscureth the Earth and although the revenge be not answerable to the injury for that the Moon often continueth and that for a reasonable long time wholly immersed in the Earths shadow but never was the Earth wholly nor for any long time eclipsed by the Moon yet neverthelesse having respect to the smalnesse of the body of this in comparision to the magnitude of the other it cannot be denied but that the will and as it were valour of this is very great Thus much for their congruities or resemblances It should next follow that we discourse touching their disparity but because Simplicius will favour us with his objections against the former its necessary that we hear and examine them before we proceed any farther SAGR. And the rather because it is to be supposed that Simplicius will not any wayes oppose the disparities and incongruities betwixt the Earth and Moon since that he accounts their substances extremely different SIMPL. Amongst the resemblances by you recited in the parallel you make betwixt the Earth and Moon I find that I can admit none confidently save onely the first and two others I grant the first namely the spherical figure howbeit even in this there is some kind of difference for that I hold that of the Moon to be very smooth and even as a looking-glasse whereas we find and feel this of the Earth to be extraordinary montuous and rugged but this belonging to the inequality of superficies it shall be anon considered in another of those Resemblances by you alledged I shall therefore reserve what I have to say thereof till I come to the consideration of that Of what you affirm next that the Moon seemeth as you say in your second Resemblance opacous and obscure in its self like the Earth I admit not any more than the first attribute of opacity of which the Eclipses of the Sun assure me For were the Moon transparent the air in the total obscuration of the Sun would not become so duskish as at such a time it is but by means of the transparency of the body of the Moon a refracted light would passe through it as we see it doth through the thickest clouds But as to the obscurity I believe not that the Moon is wholly deprived of light as the Earth nay that clarity which is seen in the remainder ot its Discus over and the above the small crescent enlightened by the Sun I repute to be its proper and natural light and not a reflection of the Earth which I esteem unable by reason of its asperity cragginesse and obscurity to reflect the raies of the Sun In the third Parallel I assent unto you in one part and dissent in another I agree in judging the body of the Moon to be most solid and hard like the Earth yea much more for if from Aristotle we receive that the Heavens are impenetrable and the Stars the most dense parts of Heaven it must necessarily follow that they are most solid and most impenetrable SAGR. What excellent matter would the Heavens afford us for to make Pallaces of if we could procure a substance so hard and so
that he who should leave in the Elements all those motions operations and other accidents by which their natures are distinguished would not deprive us of the power of coming to the knowledge of them although he should remove those operations in which they unitedly concur and which for that reason are of no use for the distinguishing of those natures SIMP I think your dissertation to be very good SALV But that the Earth Water Air are of a nature equally constituted immoveable about the centre is it not the opinion of your self Aristotle Prolomy and all their sectators SIMP It s on all hands granted as an undeniable truth SALV Then from this common natural condition of quiescence about the centre there is no argument drawn of the different natures of these Elements and things elementary but that knowledge must be collected from other qualities not common and therefore whoso should deprive the Elements of this common rest only and should leave unto them all their other operations would not in the least block up the way that leadeth to the knowledge of their essences But Copernicus depriveth them onely of this common rest and changeth the same into a common motion leaving them gravity levity the motions upwards downwards slower faster rarity density the qualities of hot cold dry moist and in a word all things besides Therefore such an absurdity as this Authour imagineth to himself is no Copernican position nor doth the concurrence in an identity of motion import any more or less than the concurrence in an identity of rest about the diversifying or not diversifying of natures Now tell us if there be any argument to the contrary SIMP There followeth a fourth objection taken from a natural observation which is That bodies of the same kind have motions that agree in kinde or else they agree in rest But by the Copernican Hypothesis bodies that agree in kinde and are most semblable to one another would be very discrepant yea diametrically repugnant as to motion for that Stars so like to one another would be neverthelesse so unlike in motion as that six Planets would perpetually turn round but the Sun and all the fixeed Stars would stand perpetually immoveable SALV The forme of the argument appeareth good but yet I believe that the application or matter is defective and if the Authour will but persist in his assumption the consequence shall make directly against him The Argument runs thus Amongst mundane bodies six there are that do perpetually move and they are the six Planets of the rest that is of the Earth Sun and fixed Stars it is disputable which of them moveth and which stands still it being necessary that if the Earth stand still the Sun and fixed Stars do move and it being also possible that the Sun and fixed Stars may stand immoveable in case the Earth should move the matter of fact in dispute is to which of them we may with most convenience ascribe motion and to which rest Natural reason dictates that motion ought to be assigned to the bodies which in kind and essence most agree with those bodies which do undoubtedly move and rest to those which most dissent from them and in regard that an eternal rest and perpetual motion are most different it is manifest that the nature of the body always moveable ought to be most different from the body alwayes stable Therefore in regard that we are dubious of motion and rest let us enquire whether by the help of some other eminent affection we may discover which most agreeth with the bodies certainly moveable either the Earth or the Sun and fixed Stars But see how Nature in favour of our necessity and desire presents us with two eminent qualities and no less different than motion and rest and they are light and darkness to wit the being by nature most bright and the being obscure and wholly deprived of light the bodies therefore adorned with an internal and eternal splendour are most different in essence from those deprived of light The Earth is deprived of light the Sun is most splendid in it self and so are the fixed Stars The six Planets do absolutely want light as the Earth therefore their essence agreeth with the Earth and differeth from the Sun and fixed Stars Therefore is the Earth moveable immoveable the Sunne and Starry Sphere SIMP But the Authour will not grant that the six Planets are tenebrose and by that negative will he abide Or he will argue the great conformity of nature between the six Planets and the Sun and Fixed Stars and the disparity between them and the Earth from other conditions than from tenebrosity and light yea now I remember in the fifth objection which followeth he layeth down the vast difference between the Earth and the Coelestial Bodies in which he writeth That the Copernican Hypothesis would make great confusion and perturbation in the Systeme of the Vniverse and amongst its parts As for instance amongst Coebodies that are immutable and incorruptible according to Aristotle Tycho and others amongst bodies I say of such nobility by the confession of every one and Copernicus himself who affirmeth them to be ordinate and disposed in a perfect constitution and removeth from them all inconstancy of vertue amongst these bodies I say once more so pure that is to say amongst Venus Mars c. to place the very sink of all corruptible matters to wit the Earth Water Air and all mixt bodies But how much properer a distribution and more with nature yea with God himself the Architect is it to sequester the pure from the impute the mortal from the immortal as other Schools teach which tell us that these impure and frail matters are contained within the angust concave of the Lunar Orb above which with uninterrupted Series the things Celestial distend themselves SALV It 's true that the Copernican Systeme introduceth distraction in the universe of Aristotle but we speak of our own Universe that is true and real Again if this Author will infer the disparity of essence between the Earth and Celestial bodies from the incorruptibility of them and the corruptibility of it in the method of Aristotle from which disparity he concludeth motion to belong to the Sun and fixed Stars and the immobility of the Earth he will flatter himself with a Paralogisme supposing that which is in question for Aristotle inferreth the incorruptibility of Celestial bodies from motion which is in dispute whether it belongeth to them or to the Earth Of the vanity of these Rhetorical Illations enough hath been spoken And what can be more fond than to say that the Earth and Elements are banished and sequestred from the Celestial Spheres and confined within the Lunar Orb Is not then the Moons Orb one of the Celestial Spheres and according to consent comprised in the middle of all the rest It s a new way to separate the pure from the impure and
therefore these Planets are superfluous yea more that there are no such things in rerum natura when as oh foolish man I know not so much as to what purpose the arteries the gristles the spleen the gall do serve nay I should not know that I have a gall spleen or kidneys if in many desected Corps they were not shewn unto me and then onely shall I be able to know what the spleen worketh in me when it comes to be taken from me To be able to know what this or that Coelestial body worketh in me seeing you will have it that all their influences direct themselves to us it would be requisite to remove that body for some time and then whatsoever effect I should find wanting in me I would say that it depended on that star Moreover who will presume to say that the space which they call too vast and uselesse between Saturn and the fixed stars is void of other mundane bodies Must it be so because we do not see them Then the four Medicean Planets and the companions of Saturn came first into Heaven when we began to see them and not before And by this rule the innumerable other fixed stars had no existence before that men did look on them and the cloudy constellations called Nebulosae were at first only white flakes but afterwards with the Telescope we made them to become constellations of many lucid and bright stars Oh presumptious rather oh rash ignorance of man SALV It 's to no purpose Sagredus to sally out any more into these unprofitable exaggerations Let us pursue our intended designe of examining the validity of the reasons alledged on either side without determining any thing remitting the judgment thereof when we have done to such as are more knowing Returning therefore to our natural and humane disquisitions I say that great little immense small c. are not absolute but relative terms so that the self same thing compared with divers others may one while be called immense and another while imperceptible not to say small This being so I demand in relation to what the Starry Sphere of Copernicus may be called over vast In my judgment it cannot be compared or said to be such unlesse it be in relation to some other thing of the same kind now let us take the very least of the same kind which shall be the Lunar Orb and if the Starry Orb may be so censured to be too big in respect to that of the Moon every other magnitude that with like or greater proportion exceedeth another of the same kind ought to be adjudged too vast and for the same reason to be denied that they are to be found in the World and thus an Elephant and a Whale shall without more ado be condemned for Chymaera's and Poetical fictions because that the one as being too vast in relation to an Ant which is a Terrestrial animal and the other in respect to the Gudgeon which is a Fish and are certainly seen to be in rerum natura would be too immeasurable for without all dispute the Elephant and Whale exceed the Ant and Gudgeon in a much greater proportion than the Starry Sphere doth that of the Moon although we should fancy the said Sphere to be as big as the Copernican Systeme maketh it Moreover how hugely big is the Sphere of Jupiter or that of Saturn designed for a receptacle but for one single star and that very small in comparison of one of the fixed Certainly if we should assign to every one of the fixed stars for its receptacle so great a part of the Worlds space it would be necessary to make the Orb wherein such innumerable multitudes of them reside very many thousands of times bigger than that which serveth the purpose of Copernicus Besides do not you call a fixed star very small I mean even one of the most apparent and not one of those which shun our sight and do we not call them so in respect of the vast space circumfused Now if the whole Starry Sphere were one entire lucid body who is there that doth not know that in an infinite space there might be assigned a distance so great as that the said lucid Sphere might from thence shew as little yea lesse than a fixed star now appeareth beheld from the Earth From thence therefore we should then judg that self same thing to be little which now from hence we esteem to be immeasurably great SAGR. Great in my judgment is the folly of those who would have had God to have made the World more proportinal to the narrow capacities of their reason than to his immense rather infinite power SIMP All this that you say is very true but that upon which the adversary makes a scruple is to grant that a fixed star should be not onely equal to but so much bigger than the Sun when as they both are particular bodies situate within the Starry Orb And indeed in my opinion this Authour very pertinently questioneth and asketh To what end and for whose sake are such huge machines made Were they produced for the Earth for an inconsiderable point And why so remote To the end they might seem so very small and might have no influence at all upon the Earth To what purpose is such a needlesse monstrous immensity between them and Saturn All those assertions fall to the ground that are not upheld by probable reasons SALV I conceive by the questions which this person asketh that one may collect that in case the Heavens the Stars and the quantity of their distances and magnitudes which he hath hitherto held be let alone although he never certainly fancied to himself any conceivable magnitude thereof he perfectly discerns and comprehends the benefits that flow from thence to the Earth which is no longer an inconsiderable thing nor are they any longer so remote as to appeare so very small but big enough to be able to operate on the Earth and that the distance between them and Saturn is very well proportioned and that he for all these things hath very probable reasons of which I would gladly have heard some one but being that in these few words he confounds and contradicts himself it maketh me think that he is very poor and ill furnished with those probable reasons and that those which he calls reasons are rather fallacies or dreams of an over-weening fancy For I ask of him whether these Celestial bodies truly operate on the Earth and whether for the working of those effects they were produced of such and such magnitudes and disposed at such and such distances or else whether they have nothing at all to do with Terrene mattets If they have nothing to do with the Earth it is a great folly for us that are Earth-born to offer to make our selves arbitrators of their magnitudes and regulators of their local dispositions seeing that we are
Earth answered by Examples of the like Motions in other Celestial Bodies 236 A fourth Argument of Claramontius against the Copernican Hypothesis of the Earths Mobility 239 From the Earths obscurity and the splendor of the fixed Stars it is argued that it is moveable and they immoveable 239 A fifth Argument of Claramontius against the Copernican Hypothesis of the Earths Mobility 240 Another difference between the Earth and Celestial Bodies taken from Purity and impurity 240 It seems a Solecisme to affirme that the Earth is not in Heaven 241 Granting to the Earth the Annual it must of necessity also have the Diurnal Motion assigned to it 300 Discourses more than childish that serve to keep Fools in the Opinion of the Earths Stability 301 The Difficulties removed that arise from the Earths moving about the Sun not solitarily but in consort with the Moon 307 The Axis of the Earth continueth alwayes parallel to it self and describeth a Cylindraical Superficies inclining to the Orb. 344 The Orb of the Earth never inclineth but is immutably the same 345 The Earth approacheth or recedeth from the fixed Stars of the Ecliptick the quantity of the Grand Orb. 349 If in the fixed Stars one should discover any Mutation the Motion of the Earth would be undeniable 351 Necessary Propositions for the better conceiving of the Consequences of the Earths Motion 354 An admirable Accident depending on the not-inclining of the Earths Axis 358 Four several Motions assigned to the Earth 362 The third Motion ascribed to the Earth is rather a resting immoveable 363 An admirable interne vertue or faculty of the Earths Globe to behold alwayes the same part of Heaven 363 Nature as iâ— sport maketh the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea to prove the Earths Mobility 379 All Terrene Effects indifferently confirm the Motion or Rest of the Earth except the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea 380 The Cavities of the Earth cannot approach or recede from the Centre of the same 387 The Hypothesis of the Earths Mobility taken in favour of the Ebbing and Flowing opposed 399 The Answers to those Objections made against the Earths Motion 399 The Revolution of the Earth confirmed by a new Argument taken from the Aire 400 The vaporous parts of the Earth partake of its Motions 400 Another observation taken from the Ayr in confirmation of the motion of the Earth 402 A Reason of the continual Motion of the Air and Water may be given by making the Earth moveable rather then by making it immoveable 405 The Earths Mobility held by sundry great Philosophers amongst the Antients 437 468 The Fathers agree not in expounding the Texts of Scripture that are alledged against the Earths Mobility 450 The Earth Mobility defended by many amongst the Modern Writers 478 The Earth shall stand still after the Day of Judgement 480 The Earth is another Moon or Star 486 The Earths several Motions according to Copernicus 491 The Earth secundum totum is Immutable though not Immoveable 491 The Earths Natural Place 492 The Earths Centre keepeth her in her Natural Place 493 The Earth in what Sense it may absolutely be said to be in the lowest part of the World 496 EBBING and Ebbings The first general Conclusion of the impossibility of Ebbing and Flowing the Immobility of the Terrestrial Globe being granted 380 The Periods of Ebbings and Flowings Diurnal Monethly and Annual 381 Varieties that happen in the Diurnal Period of the Ebbings and Flowings 382 The Causes of Ebbings and Flowings alledged by a Modern Phylosopher 382 The Cause of the Ebbing and Flowing ascribed to the Moon by a certain Prelate 383 The Cause of the Ebbing c. referred by Hyeronimus Borrius and other Peripateticks to the temperate heat of the Moon 383 Answers to the Vanities alledged as Causes of the Ebbing and Flowing 383 It s proved impossible that there should naturally be any Ebbing and Flowing the Earth being immoveable 386 The most potent and primary Cause of the Ebbing and Flowing 390 Sundry accidents that happen in the Ebbings and Flowings 391 Reasons renewed of the particular Accidents observed in the Ebbings and Flowings 393 Second Causes why in several Seas and Lakes there are no Ebbings and Flowings 394 The Reason why the Ebbings and Flowings for the most part are every Six Hours 395 The Cause why some Seas though very long suffer no Ebbing and Flowing 395 Ebbings and Flowings why greatest in the Extremities of Gulphs and least in the middle parts 396 A Discussion of some more Abstruce Accidents observed in the Ebbing and Flowing 396 The Ebbing and Flowing may depend on the Diurnal Motion of Heaven 404 The Ebbing and Flowing cannot depend on the Motion of Heaven 405 The Causes of the Periods of the Ebbings and Flowings Monethly and Annual at large assigned 407 The Monethly and Annual alterations of the Ebbings and Flowings can depend on nothing save on the alteration of the Additions and Subtractions of the Diurnal Period from the Annual 408 Three wayes of altering the proportion of the Additions of the Diurnal Revolution to the Annual Motion of the Ebbing and Flowing 409 Ebbings and Flowings are petty things in comparison of the vastnesse of the Seas and the Velocity of the Motion of the Terrestrial Globe 417 EFFECT and Effects Of a new Effect its necessary that the Cause be likewise new 370 The Knowledge of the Effects contribute to the investigation of the Causes 380 True and Natural Effects follow without difficulty 387 Alterations in the Effects argue alteration in the Cause 407 ELEMENTS and their Motions Vide MOTION ENCYCLOPEDIA Subtilties sufficiently insipid ironically spoken and taken from a certain Encyclopedia 153 EXPERIMENTS Sensible Experiments are to be preferred before Humane Argumentations 21 33 42. It is good to be very cautious in admitting Experiments for true to those that never tryed them 162 Experiments and Arguments against the Earths Motion seem so far concluding as they lye under Equivokes 162 The Authority of Sensible Experiments and necessary Demonstrations in deciding of Physical Controversies 436 EYE The Circle of the Pupil of the Eye contracteth and enlargeth 329 How to finde the distance of the Rays Concourse from the Pupil of the Eye 329 F FAITH Faith more infallible than either Sense or Reason 475 FIRE Fire moveth directly upwards by Nature and round about by Participation according to Aristotle 122 It is improbable that the Element of Fire should be carried round by the Concave of the Moon 405 FIGURE and Figures Figure is not the Cause of Incorruptibility but of Longer Duration 66 The perfection of Figure appeareth in Corruptible Bodies but not in the Eternal 69 If the Spherical Figure conferred Eternity all things would be Eternal 69 It is more difficult to finde Figures that touch in a part of their Surface then in one sole point 185 The Circular Figure placed amongst the Postulata of Mathematicians 186 Irregular Figures and Formes difficult to be introduced 187 Superficial figures increase in proportion
while to another and that there is a great difference between commanding a Methametitian or a Philosopher and the disposing of a Lawyer or a Merchant and that the demonstrated Conclusions touching the things of Nature and of the Heavens cannot be changed with the same facility as the Opinions are touching what is lawful or not in a Contract Bargain or Bill of Exchange This difference was well understood by the Learned and Holy Fathers as their having been at great pains to confute many Arguments or to say better many Philosophical Fallacies doth prove unto us and as may expresly be read in some of them and particularly we have in S. Augustine the following words This is to be held for an undoubted Truth That we may be confident that whatever the Sages of this World have demonstrated touching Natural Points is no waies contrary to our Bibles And in case they teach any thing in their Books that is contrary to the Holy Scriptures we may without any scruple conclude it to be most false And according to our ability let us make the same appear And let us so keep the Faith of our Lord in whom are hidden all the Treasures of Wisdom that we be neither seduced with the Loquacity of false Philosophy nor scared by the superstition of a counterfeit Religion From which words I conceive that I may collect this Doctrine namely That in the Books of the Wise of this World there are contained some Natural truths that are solidly demonstrated and others again that are barely taught and that as to the first sort it is the Office of wise Divines to shew that they are not contrary to the Sacred Scriptures As to the rest taught but not necessarily demonstrated if they shall contain any thing contrary to the Sacred Leaves it ought to be held undoubtedly false and such it ought by all possible waies to be demonstrated If therefore Natural Conclusions veritably demonstrated are not to be postposed to the Places of Scripture but that it ought to be shewn how those Places do not interfer with the said Conclusions then it s necessary before a Physical Proposition be condemned to shew that it is not necessarily demonstrated and this is to be done not by them who hold it to be true but by those who judge it to be false And this seemeth very reasonable and agreeable to Nature that is to say that they may much more easily find the fallacies in a Discourse who believe it to be false than those who account it true and concludent Nay in this particular it will come to passe that the followers of this opinion the more that they shall turn over Books examine the Arguments repeat the Observations and compare the Experiments the more shall they be confirmed in this belief And your Highness knoweth what happened to the late Mathematick Professor in the University of Pisa Who betook himself in his old age to look into the Doctrine of Copernicus with hope that he might be able solidly to confute it for that he held it so far to be false as that he had never studied it but it was his fortune that as soon as he had understood the grounds proceedings and demonstrations of Copernicus he found himself to be perswaded and of an opposer became his most confident Defender I might also nominate other Mathematicians who being moved by my last Discoveries have confessed it necessary to change the formerly received Constitution of the World it not being able by any means to subsist any longer If for the banishing this Opinion and Hypothesis out of the World it were enough to stop the mouth of one alone as it may be they perswade themselves who measuring others judgements by their own think it impossible that this Doctrine should be able to subsist and finde any followers this would be very easie to be done but the business standeth otherwise For to execute such a determination it would be necessary to prohibite not onely the Book of Copernicus and the Writings of the other Authors that follow the same opinion but to interdict the whole Science of Astronomy and which is more to forbid men looking towards Heaven that so they might not see Mars and Venus at one time neer to the Earth and at another farther off with such a difference that the latter is found to be fourty times and the former sixty times bigger in surface at one time than at another and to the end that the same Venus might not be discovered to be one while round and another while forked with most subtil hornes and many other sensible Observations which can never by any means be reconciled to the Ptolomaick Systeme but are unanswerable Arguments for the Copernican But the prohibiting of Copernicus his Book now that by many new Observations and by the application of many of the Learned to the reading of him his Hypothesis and Doctrine doth every day appear to be more true having admitted and tolerated it for so many years whilst he was lesse followed studied and confirmed would seem in my judgment an affront to Truth and a seeking the more to obscure and suppresse her the more she sheweth her self clear and perspicuous The abolishing and censuring not of the whole Book but onely so much of it as concerns this particular opinion of the Earths Mobility would if I mistake not be a greater detriment to souls it being an occasion of great scandal to see a Position proved and to see it afterwards made an Heresie to believe it The prohibiting of the whole Science what other would it be but an open contempt of an hundred Texts of the Holy Scriptures which teach us That the Glory and the Greatnesse of Almighty God is admirably discerned in all his Works and divinely read in the Open Book of Heaven Nor let any one think that the Lecture of the lofty conceits that are written in those Leaves finish in only beholding the Splendour of the Sun and of the Stars and their rising and setting which is the term to which the eyes of bruits and of the vulgar reach but there are couched in them mysteries so profound and conceipts so sublime that the vigils labours and studies of an hundred and an hundred acute Wits have not yet been able thorowly to dive into them after the continual disquisition of some thousands of years But let the Unlearned believe that like as that which their eyes discern in beholding the aspect of a humane body is very little in comparison of the stupendious Artifices which an exquisite and curious Anatomist or Philosopher finds in the same when he is searching for the use of so many Muscles Tendons Nerves and Bones and examining the Offices of the Heart and of the other principal Members seeking the seat of the vital Faculties noting and observing the admirable structures of the Instruments of the Senses and without ever making an end of satisfying his curiosity and wonder contemplating
be moved and not the Earth as namely because the Sun appeareth small and the Earth bigg Again the Motion of the Sun is not discerned by the eye by reason of his seeming tardity but by ratiocination onely in that after some time it varieth not its proximity to such and such Mountains Therefore it is impossible that Reason unless it be first instructed should frame to it self any other apprehension than that the Earth with Heavens Arch placed over it is as it were a great House in which being immoveable the Sun like a Bird flying in the Air passeth in so small a Species out of one Climate into another Which imagination of all Man-kinde being thus gave the first line in the Sacred Leaves In the beginning saith Moses God created the Heaven and the Earth for that these two are most obvious to the eye As if Moses should have said thus to Man This whole Mundane Fabrick which thou seest lucid above and dark and of a vast extent beneath wherein thou hast thy being and with which thou art covered was created by God In another place Man is questioned Whether he can finde out the height of Heaven above or depth of the Earth beneath for that each of them appeareth to men of ordinary capacity to have equally an infinite extent And yet no man that is in his right mind will by these words circumscribe and bound the diligence of Astronomers whether in demonstrating the most contemptible Minuity of the Earth in comparison of Heaven or in searching out Astronomical Distances Since those words speak not of the Rational but real Dimention which to a Humane Body whilst confin'd to the Earth and breathing in the open Air is altogether impossible Read the whole 38. Chapter of Job and compare it with those Points which are disputed in Astronomy and Physiologie If any one do alledge from Psal. 24. That The Earth is founded upon the Seas to the end that he may thence infer some new Principle in Philosophy absurd to hear as That the Earth doth float upon the Waters may it not truly be told him That he ought not to meddle with the Holy Spirit nor to bring him with contempt into the School of Physiologie For the Psalmist in that place means nothing else but that which men fore-know and daily see by experience namely That the Earth being lifted up after the separation of the Waters doth swim between the Grand Oceans and float about the Sea Nor is it strange that the expression should be the same where the Israelites sing That they sate on the River of Babylon that is by the River side or on the Banks of Euphrates and Tygris If any one receive this Reading without scruple why not the other that so in those same Texts which are wont to be alledged against the Motion of the Earth we may in like manner turn our eyes from Natural Philosophy to the scope and intent of Scripture One Generation passeth away saith Ecclesiastes and another Generation cometh But the Earth abideth for ever As if Solomon did here dispute with Astronomers and not rather put men in minde of their Mutability whenas the Earth Mankindes habitation doth alwaies remain the same The Suns Motion doth continually return into what it was at first The Wind is acted in a Circle and returns in the same manner The Rivers flow from their Fountains into the Sea and return again from thence unto their Fountains To conclude The Men of this Age dying others are born in their room the Fable of Life is ever the same there is nothing new under the Sun Here is no reference to any Physical Opinion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is Moral of a thing in it self manifest and seen by the eyes of all but little regarded T is that therefore which Solomon doth inculcate For who knows not that the Earth is alwaies the same Who sees not that the Sun dotharise from the East That the Rivers continually run into the Sea That the vicissitudes of the Windes return into their primitive State That some men succeed others But who considereth that the self-same Scene of Life is ever acting by different persons and that nothing is new in humane affairs Therefore Solomon instancing in those things which all men see doth put men in minde of that which many thorowly know but too slightly consider But the 104. Psalm is thought by some to contain a Discourse altogether Physical in regard it onely concerns Natural Philosophy Now God is there said To have laid the Foundations of the Earth that it should not be removed for ever But here also the Psalmist is far from the Speculation of Physical Causes For he doth wholly acquiesce in the Greatnesse of God who did all these things and sings an Hymne to God the Maker of them in which he runneth over the World in order as it appeared to his eyes And if you well consider this Psalme it is a Paraphrase upon the six dayes work of the Creation For as in it the three first dayes were spent in the Separation of Regions the first of Light from the exteriour Darkness the second of the Waters from the Waters by the interposition of the Firmament the third of the Sea from Land when also the Earth was cloathed with Herbage and Plants And the three last dayes were spent in the filling the Regions thus distinguished the fourth of Heaven the fifth of the Seas and Aire the sixth of the Earth So here in this Psalme there are so many distinct parts proportionable to the Analogy of the six dayes Works For in Verse 2. he cloaths and covereth the Creator with Light the first of Creatures and work of the first day as with a Garment The second part beginneth at Verse 3. and treats of the Waters above the Heavens the extent of Heaven and of Meteors which the Psalmist seemeth to intend by the Waters above as namely of Clouds Winds Whirl-winds Lightnings The third part begins at Verse 6. and doth celebrate the Earth as the foundation of all those things which he here considereth For he referreth all things to the Earth and to those Animals which inhabit it for that in the judgment of Sight the two principal parts of the World are Heaven and Earth He therefore here observeth that the Earth after so many Ages hath not faltered tired or decayed when as notwithstanding no man hath yet discovered upon what it is founded He goeth not about to teach men what they do not know but putteth them in minde of what they neglect to wit the Greatnesse and Power of God in creating so huge a Mass so firm and stedfast If an Astronomer should teach that the Earth is placed among the Planets he overthroweth not what the Psalmist here saith nor doth he contradict Common Experience for it is true notwithstanding that the Earth the Structure of God its Architect doth not decay as our Buildings are wont to do
follow that Hell is either in the Sun forasmuch as it is supposed by this Hypothesis to be in the Centre of the World or else supposing that Hell is in the Centre of the Earth if the Earth should move about the Sun it would necessarily ensue that Hell together with the Earth is in Heaven and with it revolveth about the third Heaven than which nothing more absurd can be said or imagined The fifth Classis is of those Authorities which alwayes oppose Heaven to the Earth and so again the Earth to Heaven as if there were the same relation betwixt them with that of the Centre to the Circumference and of the Circumference to the Centre But if the Earth were in Heaven it should be on one side thereof and would not stand in the Middle and consequently there would be no such relation betwixt them which nevertheless do not only in Sacred Writ but even in Common Speech ever and every where answer to each other with a mutual Opposition Whence that of Genes 1. In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth and Psal. 115. The Heaven even the Heavens are the Lords but the Earth hath he given to the Children of menâ— and our Saviour in that Prayer which he prescribeth to us Matth. 6. Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven and S. Paul 1 Corinth 15. The first man is of the Earth earthy the second man is of Heaven heavenly and Coloss. 1. By him were all things created that are in Heaven and that are in Earth and again Having made peace through the Blood of his Crosse for all things whether they be things in Earth or things in Heaven and Chap. 3. Set your affections on things above not on things on the Earth with innumerable other such like places Since therefore these two Bodies are alwayes mutually opposed to each other and Heaven without all doubt referreth to the Circumference it must of necessity follow that the Earth is to be adjudged the place of the Centre The sixth and last Classis is of those Authorities which being rather of Fathers and Divines than of the Sacred Scripture say That the Sun after the day of Judgment shall stand immoveable in the East and the Moon in the West Which Station if the Pythagorick Opinion hold true ought rather to be ascribed to the Earth than to the Sun for if it be true that the Earth doth now move about the Sun it is necessary that after the day of Judgment it should stand immoveable And truth is if it must subsist without motion in one constant place there is no reason why it should rather stand in one site of that Place than in another or why it should rather turn one part of it than another to the Sun if so be that every of its parts without distinction which iâ— destitute of the Suns light cannot choose but be dismal and much worse affected than that part which is illuminated Hence also would arise many other absurdities besides these These are the Classes c. from which great assaults are made against the structure of the Pythagorick Systeme yet by that time I shall have first laid down six Maximes or Principles as impregnable Bulwarks erected against them it will be easie to batter them and to defend the Hypothesis of Pythagoras from being attaqued by them Which before I propound I do proâ—ess with that Humility and Modesty which becometh a Christian and a person in Religious Orders that I do with reverence submit what I am about to speak to the Judgment of Holy Church Nor have I undertaken to write these things out of any inducements of Temerity or Ambition but out of Charity and a Desire to be auxiliary to my neighbour in his inquisition after Truth And there is nothing in all this Controversie maintained by me that expect to be better instructed by those who profess these Studies which I shall not retract if any persons shall by solid Reasons reiterated Experiments prove some other Hypothesis to be more probable but yet until such time as they shall decide the Point I shall labour all I can for its support My first and chiefest Maxime is this When any thing is attributed in Holy Writ to God or to a Creature that 's not beseeming to or incommensurate with them it must of necessity be received and expounded one or more of the four following wayes First it may be said to agree with them Metaphorically and Proportionally or by Similitude Secondly According to our manner of Considering Apprehending Conceiving Vnderstanding Knowing c. Thirdly according to the Opinion of the Vulgar and the Common way of Speaking to which Vulgar Speech the Holy Ghost doth very often with much study accomodate it self Fourthly In respect of our selves and for that he makes himself like unto us Of each of these wayes there are these examples God doth not walk since he is Infinite and Immoveable He hath no Bodily Members since he is a Pure Act and consequently is void of all Passion of Minde and yet in Sacred Scripture Gen. 3. vers 8. it is said He walked in the cool of the day and Job 22. vers 14. it is said He walketh in the Circuit of Heaven and in many other places coming departing making hast is ascribed to God and likewise Bodily parts as Eyes Ears Lips Face Voice Countenance Hands Feet Bowâ—â— Garments Arms as also many Passions such as Anger Sorrow Repentance and the like What shall we say therefore Without doubt such like Attributes agree with God to use the Schoolmens words Metaphorically Proportionally and by Similitude And touching Passions it may be said that God condescendeth to represent himself after that manner as for instance The Lord is angry i. e. He revealeth himself as one that is angry He grieved i. e. He revealeth himself as one that is sorrowful It repented him that he had made man i. e. He seemed as one that repented And indeed all these things are Comparativè ad nos and in respect of us So God is said to be in Heaven to move in time to shew himself to hide himself to observe and mark our steps to seek us to stand at the door to knock at the door not that he can be contained in a bodily place nor that he is really moved nor in time nor that humane manners or customes can agree with him save only according to our manner of Apprehension This Conception of ours orderly distinguisheth these Attributes in him one from another when notwithstanding they are one and the same with him This Apprehension of ours divideth also his actions into several times which neverthelesse for the most part are produced in one and the same instant And this to conclude alwayes apprehendeth those things with some defect which notwithstanding are in God most perfect For this reasâ—n doth the Sacred Scripture express it self according to the Vulgar Opinion whilst it
Therefore neither the whole Earth nor the whole Water nor the whole Air can secundum totum be driuen or forced out of their proper place site or Systeme in the Universe in respect of the order and disposition of other mundane Bodies And thus there is no Star though Erratick Orb or Sphere that can desert its natural place although it may otherwise have some kind of motion Therefore all things how moveable soever are notwithstanding said to be stable and immoveable in their proper place according to the foresaid sense i.e. secundum totum For nothing hinders but that secundum partes they may some waymove which motion shall not be natural but violent Therefore the Earth although it should be moveable yet it might be said to be immoveable according to the precedent Maxime for that its neither moved in a right Motion nor out of the Course assigned it in its Creation for the standing Rule of its motion but keep within its own site being placed in that which is called the Grand Orb above Venus and beneath Mars and being in the middle betwixt these which according to the common opinion is the Suns place it equally and continually moveth about the Sun and the two other intermediate Planets namely Venus and Mercury and hath the Moon which is another Earth but Aetherial as Macrobius after some of the ancient Philosophers will have it about it self From whence inasmuch as she persisteth uniformly in her Course and never at any time departeth from it she may be said to be stable and immoveable and in the same sense Heaven likewise with all the Elements may be said to be immoveable The fifth Maxime followeth being little different from the former Amongst the things created by God some are of such a nature that their parts may be ab invicem or by turns separated from themselves and dis-joyned from their Whole others may not at least taken collectively now those are perishable but these perpetual The Earth therefore since it is reckoned amongst those things that are permanent as hath been said already hath its parts not dissipable nor ab invicem separable from its Centre whereby its true and proper place is assigned it and from its whole taken collectively because according to its whole it is always preserved compact united and cohaerent in it self nor can its parts be seperated from the Centre or from one another unless it may so fall out per accidens and violently in some of its parts which afterwards the obstacle being removed return to their Natural Station spontaneously and without any impulse In this Sense therefore the Earth is said to be Immoveable and Immutable yea even the Sea Aire Heaven and any other thing although otherwise moveable so long as its parts are not dissipable and seperable may be said to be Immoveable at last taken collectively This Principle or Maxim differeth from the precedent only in that this referrs to the parts in order to Place and this in order to the Whole From this Speculation another Secret is discovered For hence it is manifest wherein the proper and genuine formality of the Gravity aad Levity of Bodyes consisteth a point which is not so clearly held forth nor so undeniably explained by the Peripatetick Phylosophy Gravity therefore is nothing else according to the Principles of this new Opinion than a certain power and appetite of the Parts to rejoyn with their Whole and there to rest as in their proper place Which Faculty or Disposition is by Divine Providence bestowed not only on the Earth and Terrene Bodies but as is believed on Coelestial Bodies also namely the Sun Moon and Stars all whose parts are by this Impulsion connected and conserved together cleaving closely to each other and on all sides pressing towards their Centre until they come to rest there From which Concourse and Compression a Sphaerical and Orbicular Figure of the Caelestial Orbes is produced wherein by this occult Quality naturally incident to each of them they of themselves subsist and are alwayes preserved But Levity is the Extrusion and Exclusion of a more tenuose and thin Body from the Commerce of one more Solid and dense that is Heterogeneal to it by vertue of Heat Whereupon as the Motion of Grave Bodies is Compressive so the Motion of Light Bodies is Extensive For it s the propperty of Heat to dilate and rarify those things to which it doth apply conjoine and communicate it self And for this reason we find Levity and Gravity not only in respect of this our Terestrial Globe and the Bodies adjacent to it but also in respect of those Bodies which are said to be in the Heavens in which those parts which by reason of their proclivity make towards their Centre are Grave and those that incline to the Circumference Light And so in the Sun Moon and Starrs there are parts as well Grave as Light And consequently Heaven it self that so Noble Body and of a fifth Essence shall not be constituted of a Matter different from that of the Elements being free from all Mutation in it's Substance Quantity and Quality Nor so admirable and excellent as Aristotle would make us to believe nor yet a solid Body and impermeable and much lesse as the generality of men verily believe of an impenetrable and most obdurate Density but in it as this Opinion will have it Comets may be generated and the Sun it self as t is probable exhaling or attracting sundry vapours to the surface of its Body may perhaps produce those Spots which were observed to be so various and irregular in its Discus of which Galilaeus in a perticular Treatise hath most excellently and most accurately spoken insomuch that though it were not besides my present purpose yet it is convenient that I forbear to speak any thing touching those matters least I should seem to do that which he hath done before me But now if there be found in the Sacred Scriptures any Authority contrary to these things it may be salved by the foresaid Arguments Analogically applyed And furthermore it may be said that that Solidity is to be so understood as that it admits of no vacuum cleft or penetration from whence the least vacuity might proceed For the truth is as that cannot be admitted in bodily Creatures so it is likewise repugnant to Heaven it self being indeed a Body of its own Nature the most Rare of all others and tenuose beyond all Humane Conception and happly hath the same proportion to the Aire as the Aire to the Water It is clear also from these Principles how false these words of Aristotle are that Of one simple Body there is one simple Motion and this is of two kindes Right and Circular the Right is twofold from the medium and to the medium the first of Light Bodyes as the Aire and Fire the second of Grave Bodyes as the Water and Earth the Circular which is about the
medium belongeth to Heaven which is neither Grave nor Light For all this Philosophy is now forsaken and of it self grown into dis-esteem for though it be received for an unquestionable truth in this new Opinion that to a simple body appertains one only simple Motion yet it granteth no Motion but what is Circular by which alone a simple body is conserved in its naturall Place and subsists in its Unity and is properly said to move in loco in a place whereby it comes to pass that a Body for this reason doth continue to move in it self or about its own axis and although it have a Motion yet it abideth still in the same place as if it were perpetually immoveable But right Motion which is properly ad locum to a place can be ascribed only to those things which are out of their naturall place being far from union with one another and from unity with their whole yea that are seperated and divided from it Which being that it is contrary to the Nature and forme of the Universe it necessarily followeth that right Motion doth in short sute with those things which are destitute of that perfection that according to their proper Nature belongeth to them and which by this same right Motion they labour to obtaine untill they are redintigrated with their Whole and with one another and restored to their Naturall place in which at the length having obtained their perfection they settle and remaine immoveable Therefore in right Motions there can be no Uniformity nor simplicity for that they vary by reason of the uncertaine Levity or Gravity of their respective Bodyes for which cause they do not persevere in the same Velocity or Tardity to the end which they had in the beginning Hence we see that those things whose weight maketh them tend downwards do descend at first with a slow Motion but afterwards as they approach neerer and neerer to the Centre they precipitate more and more swiftly And on the otherside those things which by reason of their lightness are carryed upwards as this our Terrestriall fire which is nothing else but a smoak that burneth and is inkindled into a flame are no sooner ascended on high but in almost the self-same moment they fly and vanish out of sight by reason of the rare-faction and extension that they as soon as they acquire are freed from those bonds which violently and against their own Nature kept them under and deteined them here below For which reason it is very apparent that no Right Motion can be called Simple not only in regard that as hath been said it is not even and uniforme but also because it is mixt with the Circular which lurketh in the Right by an occult consent scilicet by reason of the Natural affection of the Parts to conforme unto their Whole For when the Whole moveth Circularly it is requisite likewith that the Parts to the end that they may be united to their Whole howbeit per accidens they are sometimes moved with a Right Motion do move though not so apparently with a Circular Motion as doth their Whole And thus at length we have envinced that Circular Motion only is Simple Uniform and Aequable and of the same tenor or rate for that it is never destitute of its interne Cause whereas on the contrary Right Motion which pertains to things both Heavy and Light hath a Cause that is imperfect and deficient yea that ariseth from Defect it self and that tendeth to and seeketh after nothing else but the end and termination of it self in regard that Grave and Light Bodies when once they have attained their proper and Natural Place do desist from that Motion to which they were incited by Levity and Gravity Therefore since Circular Motion is proper to the Whole and Right Motion to the Parts these differences are not rightly referred to Motion so as to call one Motion Right another Circular as if they were not consistent with one another For they may be both together and that Naturally in the same Body no lesse than it is equally Natural for a Man to participate of Sense and Reason seeing that these differences are not directly opposite to one another Hereupon Rest and Immobility only are opposed to Motion and not one Species of Motion to another And for the other differences à medio ad medium and circa medium they are distinguished not really but only formally as the Point Line and Superficies none of which can be without the other two or without a Body Hence it appears that in as much as this Phylosophy differs from that of Aristotle so in like manner doth this New Cosmographical System vary from the Common one that hath been hitherto received But this by the way upon occasion of explaining the Fifth Maxim For as to the truth or falshood of these foregoing Positions although I conceive them very probable I am resolved to determine nothing at present neither shall I make any farther enquiry into them The Sixth and Last Maxim is this Every thing is Simply denominated such as it is in comparison of all things or of many things which make the greater number of that kinde but not in respect of a few which make but the lesser part of them As for instance a Vessel shall not be called absolutely Great because it is so whilst it is compared with two or three others but it shall be said to be great absolutely and will be so if it exceed in magnitude all indivials or the greater part of them Nor again shall a Man be said to be absolutely Big because he is bigger than a Pigmey nor yet absolutely Little because lesse than a Gyant but he shall be termed absolutely Big or Little in comparison of the ordinary Stature of the greater part of Men. Thus the Earth cannot absolutely be said to be High or Low for that it is found to be so in respect of some small part of the Universe nor again shall it be absolutely affirmed to be High being compared to the Centre of the World or some few parts of the Universe more near to the said Centre as is the Sun Mercury or Venus but it shall receive its absolute denomination according as it shall be found to be in comparison of the greater number of the Spheres and Bodies of the Universe The Earth therefore in comparison of the whole Circuit of the Eighth Sphaere which includeth all Corporeal Creatures and in comparison of Jupiter Mars and Saturn together with the Moon and much more in comparison of other Bodies if any such there be above the Eighth Sphere and especially the Empyrial Heaven may be truly said to be in the lowest place of the World and almost in the Centre of it nor can it he said to be above any of them except the Sun Mercury and Venus So that one may apply unto it the name of an Infime and Low but
in Italian weights and measures And 100 pounds Haverdupoise make 1â—1 l. Florentine And 100 Englâ—◠〈◊〉 makes 150◠〈◊〉 Florent so that the brace or yard of our Author is 1 4 of our yard * The Italian measure which I commonly translâ—te yards †The Italian mâ—le is 〈◊〉 of our mile The falling moveable if it move with a degree of velocity acquired in a like time with an uniform motion it shall pass a space double to that passed with the accelerated motion The motion of grave penduli might be perpetuated impediments being removed If the Terrestrial Globe were perforated a grave body descending by that bore would pass and ascend as far beyond the centre as it did descend The acceleration of grave bodies naturally descendent increaseth from moment to moment In natural Sciences it is not necessary to seek Mathematicall evidence The pendulum hanging at a longer thâ—eed maketh its vibrations more seldome than the pendulum hanging at a shorter threed The vibrations of the same pendulum are made with the same frequency whether they be small or great The cause which impedeth the pendulum and reduceth it to rest The thread or chain to which a pendulum is fastned maketh an arch and doth not stretch it selfe streight out in its vibrations * Pesci armai or armati * Not Sagredus as the Latine hath it We know 〈◊〉 more who moveth grave bâ—dus downwards than who moveth the Stars round nor knâ—w we any thing of these causeâ— more than the names imposed on them by us The vertue which carrieth grave projects upwards is no lesse natural to them than the gravity which moveth them downwards Contrary principles cannot naturally reside in the same subject The natural motion changeth it selfe into that which is called preternatural and violent The propension of elementary bodies to follow the Earth hath a limited Sphere of activity Of the mixt motion we see not the part that is circular because we partake thereof Things grave are before the centre of gravity The great maâ— of grave bodies being transfeâ—red cut of their place the separated parts would follow that 〈◊〉 It is not impoâ—sible with the circumference of a small 〈◊〉 for times â—â—volved to measure and describâ—◠〈…〉 great circle whatsoever * Goâ—dâ— la. * The â—ame of the Author is Scipio Claramontius The opinion of Copernicus overthrows the Criterium of Philosophy Common motion is as if it never were The argument taken from things falling perpendicularly another way confuted Where â—e motion of 〈◊〉 body is collected The motion of the eye argueth the motion of the obâ—ect looked on An experiment that 〈◊〉 how the common motion is impercâ—ptible An ingenuous consideration about the possibility of using the Telescope with as much facility on the round top of the Mast of a ship as on the Deck * I deviate here from the strict Sea Diallect which denominates all distances by Leagues Different motions depending on the fluctuation of the Ship * Greco which the Latine Translator according to his usual carelessenesse to call it no worse translates Corum Ventum the Northwest Wind for Ventum Libanotum Two mutations made in the Telescope depending on the agitation of the Ship * This is a Castle six Italian miles from Venice Northwards * Vn nero d' ugna the black or paring of a nail The annual motion of the 〈…〉 a perpetual and strong winde The air alwayes touching us with the same part of it cannot make us feel it He that will follow Copernicus must deny his senses Our motion may be either 〈…〉 or externâ— and yet we never perceive or feel it The motion of a Boat insensible to those that are with in it as to the sense of feeling The boats motion is perceptible to the sight joyn'd with reason The terrestrial motion collected from the stars Arguments against the Earths motion taken ex rerum natura Three Axioms that are supposed manifest A simple body at the Earth cannot move with three several motions The Earth cannot move with any of the motions assigned it by Copernicus Answers to the arguments contrary to the Earths motion taken ex rerum natura A fourth Axiome against the motion of the Earth Flexures necessary in animals for the diversity of their motions Another argument against the threefold motion of the Earth The Flexures in animals are not made for the diversity of motions The motions of animals are of one sort The ends of the bones are all rotund It is demonstrated that the ends of the bones are of necessity to be rotund The motions of animals are all circular Secondary motions of animals dependent on the first The Terrestriall Globe hath noe need of flexures * Without joynts It is desired to know by means of what flexures and joynts the Terrestrial Globe might move with three diverse motions One only principle may cause a plurality of motions in the Earth A grosse error of the opposer of Copernicus A subtil and withal simple argument against Copernicus 〈…〉 By another 〈◊〉 error it is seen that the Autagonist had but little studied Copernicus Never first 〈…〉 of them Copernicus erroneously assigneth the same operations to different natures From commune accidents one cannot know different natures The concurrence of the Elements in a common motion importeth no more or lesse than their concurrence in a common rest A fourth argument against Copernicus Bodies of the same kinde have motions that agree in kinde From the Earths obscurity and the splendour of the Sun and fixed Stars is argued that it is moveable and they immoveable A fifth argument against Copernicus Another difference between the Earth and the Coelestial bodies taken from purity impurity Copernicus introduceth confusion in the Universe of Aristotle The Paralogisme of the Author of Anti-Tycho It seemeth a folly to affirm the Earth to be without the Heavens * Lazeretto * Intrecciare to twine flowers in a garland A sixth argument against Copernicus taken from animals who have need of rest though their motion be natural An argument from Kepler in favour of Copernicus The Author of the Anti-Tycho opposeth Kepler The velocity of the circular motion increaseth according to the encrease of the diameter of the circle An explanation of the true sense of Kepler and his â—â—fence The greatnesse and smalnesse of the body make a differeuce in motion and not in rest The order of nature is to make the lesser Orbs to circulate in shorter times and the bigger in longer times The feigned answer of Kepler covered with an artificial Irony Animals would not grow weary of their motion proceeding as that which is assigned to the terrestrial Globe The cause of the wearinesse of animals The motion of an animal is rather to be called violent than natural The strength diminisheth not where it is not imployed The argument of Chramontius 〈◊〉 upon himself True Propositions meet with many conclusive arguments so do not the false * Cinque 〈◊〉 seâ— braccia
Christianus ita noverit ut cirtissima ratione vel experientiâ teneat Turpe autem est nimis perniciosum ac maxime cavendum ut Christianum de his rebus quasi secundum Christianas litteras loquentem ita delirare quilibet infidelis audiat ut quem admodum dicitur toto Caelo errare conspiciens risuÌ„tenere vix possit non tam molestum est quod errans homo derideretur sed quod auctores nostri ab tis qui foris sunt talia sensisse creduntur cum magno exitio corim de quorum salute satagimus tanquam indocti reprehenduntur atque respuuntur Cum enim quemquam de numero Christianorum eaiâ—re quam ipsi optime norunt deprehenderint vanam sententiam suam de nostris libris asserent quo pacto illis Libris credituri sunt de Resurrectione Mortuorum de spe vitae eternae Regnoque Celorum quando de his rebus quas jam experiri vel indubitatis rationibus percipere potuerunt fallaciter putaverint esse conscriptos y Quid enim molestiae tristiaeque ingerant prudentibus fratribus tenerarâ—j praesumpiores satis dici non potest cum si quando de falsa prava opinione sua reprehendi convinci caeperint ab iis qui nostrorum librorum auctoritate apertissima falsitate dixerunt eosdnm libros Sanctos unde id probent proferre conantur vel etiam memoriter quae ad testimonium vâ—lere arbitrantur multa inde verba pronunciant non intelligentes neque quae loquuntur neque de quibus affirmant If this passage seem harsh the Reader must remember that I do but Translate * 〈…〉 On it s own Axis * Lux ejus colligit convertitque ad se omnia quae videntur quae moventur quae illustrantur quae calescunt uno nomine ea quae ab ejus splendore continentur Itaque Sol 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicitur quod omnia congreget colligatque dispersa * Si enim Sol hic quem videmus eorum quae sub sensum cadunt essentias qualitates quaeque multa sint ac dissimiles tamen ipse qui unus est aequaliterque lumen fundit renovat alit tuetur perficit dividit conjungit fovet faecunda reddit auget mutat firmat edit movet vitaliaque facit omnia unaquaque res hujus universitatis pro captu suo unius atque ejusdem Solis est particeps causasque multorum quae participent in se aequabiliter anticipatas habet certe majori raticne c. Solem stetisse dum adhuc in Hemisphaerio nostro supra scilicet Horizontem existeret Cajetan in loco * Or Poles * Gen. Chp. 〈◊〉 v. 1. * Psal. 24. 2. * Psal. 137. 1. * Chap. 1. v. 4 to 9. Psal. 104. v. 5. * Shelter * Officium * In vita ejus * Followers of that Learned Kings Hypothesis * That is 5000 miles eight of these making an Italian or English mile of a 1000. paces every pacâ— containing 5. Feet * Chap. 1. v. 4. The Motion of the Earth not against Scripture Faith is more certain than either Sense or Reason * 2 Pet. 1. 19. * Or Primum Mobile * Cardan de rerum vaâ—iet Lib. 1. Cap. 1. * P. Clavius in ultima suor Operum editione The Author first Theologically dâ—fendeâ—h the â—arths Mâ—bility approved by â—ary of the Moderns b Or In Sole posuit tabernaculum suum according to the Translation our Author followeth In Sphericall Bodies Deorsum is the Centre and Sursum the Circumference Hell is in the centre of the Earth not of the World Heaven and Eartâ— are always 〈◊〉 opposed to each other After the day of Judgment the Earth shall stand immoveable * Circa Cardines Coeli Luke 16. Alia sunt notiora nobis alia notiora natura vel secundum se Arist lib. 1. Phys. * Aut ad Umbram Which are really the great Lights in Heaven The Sun Moon and Stars are one the same thing The Earth is another Moon or Star Why the Sunne seemeth to us to move not the Earth Aeneid 3. a Eccles. c. 1. v. ult b Chap. 3. v. 11. c 1 Cor. c. 4. v. 5. d 1 Cor. c. 13. v. 12. e 1 John c. 3. v. 2. f 1 Cor. c. 13. v. 12. g Ecclesiast 15. 3. h 1 Cor. c. 2. v. 2. i Isa. c. 48. v. 17. 1 Thess. 4. Joshua c. 10. ver 12. * expected Isa. c. 38. v. 8. â— Several Motions of the Earth according to Copernicus The Earth Secundum Totum is Immutable though not Immovable The Earth cannot Secundum Totum remove out of its Natural Place The Natural Place of the Earth The Moon is an Aetherial Body The Earths Centre keepeth it in its Natural Place Gravity and Levity of Bodies what it is All Coelestial Bodies have Gravity and Levity Compressive Motion proper to Gravity the Extensive to Levity Heaven is not composed of a fift Essence differing from the matter of inferior Bodies Nor yet a Solid or dense Body but Rare * Delle Macchie solarj * Vnius Corporis simplicis unus est motus simplex et huic dua species Rectus Circularis Rectus duplex à medio ad medium primus levium ut Aeris Ignis secundus gravium ut Aquae Terra Circularis quiest circa medium competit Coelo quod neque est grave neque leve Arist. de Coelo Lib. 1. * Vide Copernicum de Revolutionibus Coelest Simple Motion peculiar to only Simple Bodies Right Motion belongeth to Imperfect Bodies and that are out of their natural Places Right Motion cannot be Simple Right Motion is ever mixt with the Circular * aequabilis * Even Circular Motion is truly Simple and Perpetual Circular Motion belongeth to the Whole Body and the Right to its parts Circular and Right Motion coincedent and may consist together in the same Body The Earth in 〈◊〉 sense it may 〈…〉 be said 〈…〉 the lowest 〈◊〉 of the World Christ in his Incarnation truly descended from Heaven and in his Asceâ—sion truly ascended into Heaven 2 Cor. c. 12. v. 3. Whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell The Sun is King Heart and Lamp of the World himself being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 absolutely independent The Aenigma of Plato a Circa omniâ—m Regem sunt omnia Secunda circa Secundum et Tertia circa Tertium Vide Theodo de Graec. affect curat lib. 2. Sâ—euch lib. de Parennj Philoso Eccles. c. 1. 2. 3. and almost thoout * Quod fiunt vel sunt sub sole Heaven according to Copernicus is the same with the most tenuous Aether but different from Paradice which surpasseth all the Heavens a Exod. 25. 31. b My Authour following the vulgar Translation which hath an Eligance in some things beyond ours cites the words thus Facies Candelabrum ductile de auro mundissimo Hastile ejus Calamos Sphaerulas ac Lilia ex ipso procedentia c verse 12. d or Spheres e Though our Authour speaketh here positively of nine Months c. Fathers are not agreed about the period of this planet nor that of Mercury as you may see at large in Ricciolus Almagest nov Tom. 1. part 1. l. 7. sect 3. cha 11. num 11. page 627. where he maketh Venus to consummate her Revolution in neer 225 dayes or 7 12 Mon. and Mercury in about 88 dayes or 3 Months in which he followeth Kepl. in Epitome Astronom p. 760. f vers 33 34. g 1 Kings c. 7. v. 49. 2 Chron. c. 4. vers 7. h Exod. 28. 33 34 39. v. 24 25 26. i Sap. c. 18. v. 24. k Exod. c. 28. v. 6 9 17 36. l Or totus Orbis Terrarum as the vulgar Translation hath it m Numb c. 20. v. 5. n Joel c. 1. v. 12. o Hagg. c. 2. v. 19. p Deut. c. 8. v. 8. q 1 Kings c 7. v. 20. 2 Kings c. 25. v. 17. 2 Chro. c. 3. v. 15 16. c. 4. v. 12. 13. Jerem. c. 52. v. 21 22. r Gen. c. 1. v. 1. s Psal. 67. v. 6 7. * Psal. 9 v. 5 6. * Institutionum omnium Doctrâ—narum * De Oraculis * De Divinatiâ—-ne artificiosa * De Divinatiâ—-ne Naturali Cosmologica a Nella continuatione dell Nuntio siderio b Lâ—ttera al P. Abbaâ—â— D. B. Castelli D'Aâ—cetro li. 3. Decemb. 16 9. c De Motu Aquanâ— â—ib 2. Prop. 37. p. 191. * And as is at large demonstrated by that most excellent and Honourable personage Mr. Boile in the industrious experiment of his Pneumatical Engine * Artesia * Commentarius beareth many senses but in this place signifieth a certain Register of the quantities of the Waters in the several publique Aquiducts of Rome which word I find frequently used in the Law-books of antient Civilians And by errogation we are to understand the distribution or delivering out of those stores of Water * A Coyn of Pope Julius worth six pence * Or Sluice * In Pregadi a particular Council the Senators of which have great Authority * A Venice Brace is 11 16 of our yard * A River of that name * I. Savii dell ' Acque a particular Council that take care of the Lakes and other Aquatick affairs * He here intends the Demonstrations following at the end of the first Book * Deeper * Lib. 1. * The Countrey or Province lying round the City heretofore called Latium * Or Lordship * The Popes Exchequer * Polesine is a plat of Ground almost surrounded with Bogs or waters like an Island * People of Ferrara * In Chanels made by hand * The inch of these places is somewhat bigger than ours * Of Adriano * Larghezza but misprinted
though indeed they have an influence upon the Elements It is requisite if you will prove generation and corruption in Coelestial bodies that you shew that there resides contrarieties between them SAGR. See how I will find those contrarieties between them The first fountain from whence you derive the contrariety of the Elements is the contrariety of their motions upwards and downwards it therefore is necessary that those Principles be in like manner contraries to each other upon which those motions depend and because that is moveable upwards by lightness and this downwards by gravity it is necessary that lightness and gravity are contrary to each other no less are we to believe those other Principles to be contraries which are the causes that this is heavy and that light but by your own confession levity and gravity follow as consequents of rarity and density therefore rarity and density shall be contraries the which conditions or affections are so amply found in Coelestial bodies that you esteem the stars to be onely more dense parts of their Heaven and if this be so it followeth that the density of the stars exceeds that of the rest of Heaven by almost infinite degrees which is manifest in that Heaven is infinitely transparent and the stars extremely opacous and for that there are there above no other qualities but more and less density and rarity which may be causes of the greater or less transparency There being then such contrariety between the Coelestial bodies it is necessary that they also be generable and corruptible in the same manner as the Elementary bodies are or else that contrariety is not the cause of corruptibility c. SIMPL. There is no necessity either of one or the other for that density and rarity in Coelestial bodies are not contraries to each other as in Elementary bodies for that they depend not on the primary qualities cold and heat which are contraries but on the more or less matter in proportion to quantity now much and little speak onely a relative opposition that is the least of oppositions and which hath nothing to do with generation and corruption SAGR. Therefore affirming that density and rarity which amongst the Elements should be the cause of gravity and levity which may be the causes of contrary motions sursum and deorsâ—â—m on which again dependeth the contrarieties for generation and corruption it sufficeth not that they be those densnesses and rarenesses which under the same quantity or if you will mass contain much or little matter but it is necessary that they be densnesses and rarenesses caused by the primary qualities hot and cold otherwise they would operate nothing at all but if this be so Aristotle hath deceived us for that he should have told it us at first and so have left written that those simple bodies are generable and corruptible that are moveable with simple motions upwards and downwards dependent on levity and gravity caused by rarity and density made by much or little matter by reason of heat and cold and not to have staid at the simple motion sursum and deorsùm for I assure you that to the making of bodies heavy or light whereby they come to be moved with contrary motions any kind of density and rarity sufficeth whether it proceed from heat and cold or what else you please for heat and cold have nothing to do in this affair and you shall upon experiment find that a red iron which you must grant to have heat weigheth as much and moves in the same manner as when it is cold But to overpass this also how know you but that Coelestial rarity and density depend on heat and cold SIMPL. I know it because those qualities are not amongst Coelestial bodies which are neither hot nor cold SALV I see we are again going about to engulph our selves in a bottomless ocean where there is no getting to shore for this is a Navigation without Compass Stars or Rudder so that it will follow either that we be forced to pass from Shelf to Shelf or run on ground or to sail continually in danger of being lost Therefore if according to your advice we shall proceed in our main design we must of necessity for the present overpass this general consideration whether direct motion be necessary in Nature and agree with some bodies and come to the particular demonstrations observations and experiments propounding in the first place all those that have been hitherto alledged by Aristotle Ptolomey and others to prove the stability of the Earth endeavouring in the next place to answer them and producing in the last place those by which others may be perswaded that the Earth is no less than the Moon or any other Planet to be numbered amongst natural bodies that move circularly SAGR. I shall the more willingly incline to this in that I am better satisfied with your Architectonical and general discourse than with that of Aristotle for yours convinceth me without the least scruple and the other at every step crosseth my way with some block And I see no reason why Simplicius should not be presently satisfied with the Argument you alledg to prove that there can be no such thing in nature as a motion by a right line if we do but presuppose that the parts of the Universe are disposed in an excellent constitution and perfect order SALV Stay a little good Sagredus for just now a way comes into my mind how I may give Simplicius satisfaction provided that he will not be so strictly wedded to every expression of Aristotle as to hold it heresie to recede in any thing from him Nor is there any question to be made but that if we grant the excellent disposition and perfect order of the parts of the Universe as to local scituation that then there is no other but the circular motion and rest for as to the motion by a right line I see not how it can be of use for any thing but to reduce to their natural constitution some integral bodies that by some accident were remov'd and separated from their whole as we said above Let us now consider the whole Terrestrial Globe and enquire the best we can whether it and the other Mundane bodies are to conserve themselves in their perfect and natural disposition It is necessary to say 〈◊〉 that it rests and keeps perpetually immoveable in its place or else that continuing always in its place it revolves in its self or that it turneth about a Centre moving by the circumference of a circle Of which accidents both Aristotle and Ptolomey and all their followers say that it hath ever observed and shall continually keep the first that is a perpetual rest in the same place Now why I pray you ought they not to have said that its natural affection is to rest immoveable rather than to make natural unto it the motion downwards with which motion it never did or shall
that hath been found to assigne a reason of that same appearance and withal to maintain the incorruptability and ingenerability of the Heavens and if this doth not suffice there wants not more elevated wits which will give you other more convincing SALV If this of which we dispute were some point of Law or other part of the Studies called Humanity wherein there is neither truth nor falshood if we will give sufficient credit to the acutenesse of the wit readinesse of answers and the general practice of Writers then he who most aboundeth in these makes his reason more probable and plausible but in Natural Sciences the conclusions of which are true and necessary and wherewith the judgment of men hath nothing to do one is to be more cautious how he goeth abouâ— to maintain any thing that is false for a man but of an ordinary wit if it be his good fortune to be of the right side may lay a thousand Demosthenes and a thousand Aristotles at his feet Therefore reject those hopes and conceits wherewith you flatter your self that there can be any men so much more learned read and versed in Authors than we that in despite of nature they should be able to make that become true which is false And seeing that of all the opinions that have been hitherto alledged touching the essence of these Solar spots this instanced in by you is in your judgment the truest it followeth if this be so that all the rest are false and to deliver you from this also which doubtlesse is a most false Chimaera over-passing infinite other improbabilities that are therein I shall propose against it onely two experiments one is that many of those spots are seen to arise in the midst of the Solar ring and many likewise to dissolve and vanish at a great distance from the circumference of the Sun a necessary Argument that they generate and dissolve for if without generating or corrrupting they should appear there by onely local motion they would all be seen to enter and pass out by extreme circumference The other observation to such as are not situate in the lowest degree of ignorance in Perspective by the mutation of the appearing figures and by the apparent mutations of the velocity of motion is necessarily concluding that the spots are contiguous to the body of the Sun and that touching its superficies they move either with it or upon it and that they in no wise move in circles remote from the same The motion proves it which towards the circumference of the Solar Circle appeareth very slow and towards the midst more swift the figures of the spots confirmeth it which towards the circumference appear exceeding narrow in comparison of that which they seem to be in the parts nearer the middle and this because in the midst they are seen in their full luster and as they truly be and towards the circumference by reason of the convexity of the globous superficies they seem more compress'd And both these diminutions of figure and motion to such as know how to observe and calculate them exactly precisely answer to that which should appear the spots being contiguous to the Sun and differ irreconcileably from a motion in circles remote though but for smal intervalls from the body of the Sun as hath been diffusely demonstrated by our Friend in his Letters about the Solar spots to Marcus Velserus It may be gathered from the same mutation of figure that none of them are stars or other bodies of spherical figure for that amongst all figures the sphere never appeareth compressed nor can ever be represented but onely perfectly round and thus in case any particular spot were a round body as all the stars are held to be the said roundness would as well appear in the midst of the Solar ring as when the spot is near the extreme whereas it s so great compression and shewing its self so small towards the extreme and contrariwise spatious and large towards the middle assureth us that these spots are flat plates of small thickness or depth in comparison of their length and breadth Lastly whereas you say that the spots after their determinate periods are observed to return to their former aspect believe it not Simplicius for he that told you so will deceive you and that I speak the truth you may observe them to be hid in the face of the Sun far from the circumference nor hath your Observator told you a word of that compression which necessarily argueth them to be contiguous to the Sun That which he tells you of the return of the said spots is nothing else but what is read in the forementioned Letters namely that some of them may sometimes so happen that are of so long a duration that they cannot be dissipated by one sole conversion about the Sun which is accomplished in less than a moneth SIMPL. I for my part have not made either so long or so exact observations as to enable me to boast my self Master of the Quod est of this matter but I will more accurately consider the same and make tryal my self for my own satisfaction whether I can reconcile that which experience shews us with that which Aristotle teacheth us for it 's a certain Maxim that two Truths cannot be contrary to one another SALV If you would reconcile that which sense shewed you with the solider Doctrines of Aristotle you will find no great difficulty in the undertaking and that so it is doth not Aristotle say that one cannot treat confidently of the things of Heaven by reason of their great remoteness SIMPL. He expresly saith so SALV And doth he not likewise affirm that we ought to prefer that which sense demonstrates before all Arguments though in appearance never so well grounded and saith he not this without the least doubt or haesitation SIMPL. He doth so SALV Why then the second of these propositions which are both the doctrine of Aristotle that saith that sense is to take place of Logick is a doctrine much more solid and undoubted than that other which holdeth the Heavens to be unalterable and therefore you shall argue more Aristotelically saying the Heavens are alterable for that so my sense telleth me than if you should say the Heavens are ualterable for that Logick so perswaded Aristotle Furthermore we may discourse of Coelestial matters much better than Aristotle because he confessing the knowledg thereof to be difficult to him by reason of their remoteness from the senses he thereby acknowledgeth that one to whom the senses can better represent the same may philosophate upon them with more certainty Now we by help of the Telescope are brought thirty or forty times nearer to the Heavens than ever Aristotle came so that we may discover in them an hundred things which he could not see and amongst the rest these spots in the Sun which were to him absolutely
my self SALV Well I will make you believe the same presently Tell me a little when the Moon is near the Full so that it may be seen by day and also at midnight at what do you think it more splendid by day or by night SIMPL. By night without all comparison And methinks the Moon resembleth that pillar of Clouds and pillar of Fire which guided the Israelites which at the presence of the Sun appeared like a Cloud but in the night was very glorious Thus I have by day observed the Moon amidst certain small Clouds just as if one of them had been coloured white but by night it shines with much splendor SALV So that if you had never happened to see the Moon save onely in the day time you would not have thought it more shining than one of those Clouds SIMPL. I verily believe I should not SALV Tell me now do you believe that the Moon is really more shining in the night than day or that by some accident it seemeth so SIMPL. I am of opinion that it resplends in it self as much in the day as night but that its light appears greater by night because we behold it in the dark mantle of Heaven and in the day time the whole Atmosphere being very clear so that she little exceedeth it in lustre she seems to us much less bright SALV Now tell me have you ever at midnight seen the Terrestrial Globe illuminated by the Sun SIMPL. This seemeth to me a question not to be ask'd unless in jest or of some person known to be altogether void of sense SALV No no I esteem you to be a very rational man and do ask the question seriously and therefore answer me and if afterwards you shall think that I speak impertinently I will be content to be the senseless man for he is much more a fool who interrogates simply than he to whom the question is put SIMPL. If then you do not think me altogether simple take it for granted that I have answered you already and said that it is impossible that one that is upon the Earth as we are should see by night that part of the Earth where it is day namely that is illuminated by the Sun SALV Therefore you have never seen the Earth enlightned save onely by day but you see the Moon to shine also in the dead of night And this is the cause Simplicius which makes you believe that the Earth doth not shine like the Moon but if you could see the Earth illuminated whilst you were in some dark place like our night you would see it shine brighter than the Moon Now if you desire that the comparison may proceed well you must compare the light of the Earth with that of the Moon seen in the day time and not with the same by night for it is not in our power to see the Earth illuminated save onely in the day Is it not so SIMPL. So it ought to be SALV And forasmuch as you your self have already confessed to have seen the Moon by day among some little white Clouds and very nearly as to its aspect resembling one of them you did thereby grant that those Clouds which yet are Elementary matters are as apt to receive illumination as the Moon yea more if you will but call to mind that you have sometimes seen some Clouds of vast greatness and as perfect white as the Snow and there is no question but that if such a Cloud could be continued so luminous in the deep of night it would illuminate the places near about it more than an hundred Moons If therefore we were assured that the Earth is illuminated by the Sun like one of those Clouds it would be undubitable but that it would be no less shining than the Moon But of this there is no question to be made in regard we see those very Clouds in the absence of the Sun to remain by night as obscure as the Earth and that which is more there is not any one of us but hath seen many times some such Clouds low and far off and questioned whether they were Clouds or Mountains an evident sign that the Mountains are no less luminous than those Clouds SAGR. But what needs more discourse See yonder the Moon is risen and more than half of it illuminated see there that wall on which the Sun shineth retire a little this way so that you see the Moon sideways with the wall look now which of them shews more lucid Do not you see that if there is any advantage the wall hath it The Sun shineth on that wall from thence it is reverberated upon the wall of the Hall from thence it 's reflected upon that chamber so that it falls on it at the third reflection and I am very certain that there is in that place more light than if the Moons light had directly faln upon it SIMPL. But this I cannot believe for the illumination of the Moon especially when it is at the full is very great SAGR. It seemeth great by reason of the circumjacent dark places but absolutely it is not much and is less than that of the twilight half an hour after the Sun is set which is manifest because you see not the shadows of the bodies illuminated by the Moon till then to begin to be distinguished on the Earth Whether again that third reflection upon that chamber illuminates more than the first of the Moon may be known by going thether and reading a Book and afterwards standing there in the night by the Moons light which will shew by which of them lights one may read more or less plainly but I believe without further tryal that one should see less distinctly by this later SALV Now Simplicius if haply you be satisfied you may conceive as you your self know very well that the Earth doth shine no less than the Moon and the only remembring you of some things which you knew of your self and learn'd not of me hath assured you thereof for I taught you not that the Moon shews lighter by night than by day but you understood it of your self as also you could tell me that a little Cloud appeareth as lucid as the Moon you knew also that the illumination of the Earth cannot be seen by night and in a word you knew all this without knowing that you knew it So that you have no reason to be scrupulous of granting that the dark part of the Earth may illuminate the dark part of the Moon with no less a light than that wherewith the Moon illuminates the obscurities of the night yea rather so much the greater inasmuch as the Earth is forty times bigger than the Moon SIMPL. I must confess that I did believe that that secondary light had been the natural light of the Moon SALV And this also you know of your self and perceive not that you know it Tell me do not you know without teaching that the
true than the contrary for that I affirmed no such thing nor would I have any of the Propositions in controversie be made to speak to any definitive sense but I onely intended to produce on either part those reasons and answers arguments and solutions which have been hitherto thought upon by others together with certain others which I have stumbled upon in my long searching thereinto alwayes remitting the decision thereof to the judgment of others SAGR. I was unawares transported by my own sense of the thing and believing that others ought to judg as I did I made that conclusion universal which should have been particular and therefore confesse I have erred and the rather in that I know not what Simplicius his judgment is in this particular SIMPL. I must confesse that I have been ruminating all this night of what past yesterday and to say the truth I meet therein with many acute new aud plausible notions yet nevertheless I find my self over-perswaded by the authority of so many great Writers and in particular c. I see you shake your head Sagredus and smile to your self as if I had uttered some great absurdity SAGR. I not onely smile but to tell you true am ready to burst with holding in my self from laughing outright for you have put me in mind of a very pretty passage that I was a witnesse of not many years since together with some others of my worthy friends which I could yet name unto you SALV It would be well that you told us what it was that so Simplicius may not still think that he gave you the occasion of laughter SAGR. I am content I found one day at home in his house at Venice a famous Phisician to whom some flockt for their studies and others out of curiosity sometimes came thither to see certain Anatomies diffected by the hand of a no lesse learned than careful and experienced Anatomist It chanced upon that day when I was there that he was in search of the original and rise of the Nerves about which there is a famous controversie between the Galenists and Peripateticks and the Anatomist shewing how that the great number of Nerves departing from the Brain as their root and passing by the nape of the Neck distend themselves afterwards along by the Back-bone and branch themselves thorow all the Body and that a very small filament as fine as a thred went to the Heart he turned to a Gentleman whom he knew to be a Peripatetick Philosopher and for whose sake he had with extraordinary exactnesse discovered and proved every thing and demanded of him if he was at length satisfied and perswaded that the original of the Nerves proceeded from the Brain and not from the Heart To which the Philosopher after he had stood musing a while answered you have made me to see this businesse so plainly and sensibly that did not the Text of Aristotle assert the contrary which positively affirmeth the Nerves to proceed from the Heart I should be constrained to confesse your opinion to be true SIMPL. I would have you know my Masters that this controversie about the original of the Nerves is not yet so proved and decided as some may perhaps perswade themselves SAGR. Nor questionlesse ever shall it be if it find such like contradictors but that which you say doth not at all lessen the extravagance of the answer of that Peripatetick who against such sensible experience produced not other experiments or reasons of Aristotle but his bare authority and pure ipse dixit SIMPL. Aristotle had not gained so great authority but for the force of his Demonstrations and the profoundnesse of his arguments but it is requisite that we understand him and not onely understand him but have so great familiarity with his Books that we form a perfect Idea thereof in our minds so as that every saying of his may be alwayes as it were present in our memory for he did not write to the vulgar nor is he obliged to spin out his Sillogismes with the trivial method of disputes nay rather using a freedome he hath sometimes placed the proof of one Proposition amongst Texts which seem to treat of quite another point and therefore it is requisite to be master of all that vast Idea and to learn how to connect this passage with that and to combine this Text with another far remote from it for it is not to be questioned but that he who hath thus studied him knows how to gather from his Books the demonstrations of every knowable deduction for that they contein all things SAGR. But good Simplicius like as the things scattered here and there in Aristotle give you no trouble in collecting them but that you perswade your self to be able by comparing and connecting several small sentences to extract thence the juice of some desired conclusion so this which you and other egregious Philosophers do with the Text of Aristotle I could do by the verses of Virgil or of Ovid composing thereof Centones and therewith explaining all the affairs of men and secrets of Nature But what talk I of Virgil or any other Poet I have a little Book much shorter than Aristotle and Ovid in which are conteined all the Sciences and with very little study one may gather out of it a most perfect Idea and this is the Alphabet and there is no doubt but that he who knows how to couple and dispose aright this and that vowel with those or those other consonants may gather thence the infallible answers to all doubts and deduce from them the principles of all Sciences and Arts just in the same manner as the Painter from divers simple colours laid severally upon his Pallate proceedeth by mixing a little of this and a little of that with a little of a third to represent to the life men plants buildings birds fishes and in a word counterfeiting what ever object is visible though there be not on the Pallate all the while either eyes or feathers or fins or leaves or stones Nay farther it is necessary that none of the things to be imitated or any part of them be actually among colours if you would be able therewith to represent all things for should there be amongst them v. gr feathers these would serve to represent nothing save birds and plumed creatures SALV And there are certain Gentlemen yet living and in health who were present when a Doctor that was Professor in a famous Academy hearing the description of the Telescope by him not seen as then said that the invention was taken from Aristotle and causing his works to be fetch 't he turned to a place where the Philosopher gives the reason whence it commeth that from the bottom of a very deep Well one may see the stars in Heaven at noon day and addressing himself to the company see here saith he the Well which representeth the Tube see here the gross vapours
a minutes interval the same water to begin to return back again and the tide from ebbing to become young flood without standing still a moment an effect that as long as I have dwelt in Venice I never took notice of before SAGR. It is very much that you should be left thus on ground amongst small Channels in which rivolets as having very little declivity the rising or falling of the main sea the thickness onely of a paper is sufficient to make the water to ebbe and flow for good long spaces of time like as in some creeks of the Sea its flowing four or six yards onely maketh the water to overflow the adjacent Marshes for some hundreds and thousands of acres SIMP This I know very well but I should have thought that between the ultimate terme of ebbing and the first beginnng to flow there should have interposed some considerable interval of rest SAGR. This will appear unto you if you cast your eye upon the bank or piles where these mutations are made perpendicularly but not that there is any real time of cessation SIMP I did think that because these two motions were contrary there ought to be in the midst between them some kind of rest conformable to the Doctrine of Aristotle which demonstrates that in puncto regressus mediat quies SAGR. I very well remember this place but I bear in minde also that when I read Philosophy I was not thorowly satisfied with Aristotles demonstration but that I had many experiments on the contrary which I could still rehearse unto you but I am unwilling to sally out into any other digressions we being met here to discourse of the proposed mattes if it be possible without these excursions wherewith we have interrupted our disputes in those dayes that are past SIMP And yet we may with convenience if not-interrupt them at least prolong them very much for returning yesterday home I set my self to read the Tractate of Conclusions where I find Demonstrations against this annual motion ascribed to the Earth very solid and because I would not trust my memory with the punctual relation of them I have brought back the Book along with me SAGR. You have done very well but if we would re-assume our Disputations according to yesterdayes appointment it is requisite that we first hear what account Salviatus hath to give us of the Book De stellis novis and then without interruption we may proceed to the Annual motion Now what say you Salviatus touching those stars Are they really pull'd down from Heaven to these lower regions by vertue of that Authours calculations whom Simplicius mentioneth SALV I set my self last night to peruse his proceedings and I have this morning had another view of him to see whether that which he seemed over night to affirm were really his sense or my dreams and phantastical nocturnal imaginations and in the close found to my great grief that those things were really written and printed which for the reputation-sake of this Philosopher I was unwilling to believe It is in my judgment impossible but that he should perceive the vanity of his undertaking aswell because it is too apert as because I remember that I have heard him mentioned with applause by the Academick our Friend it seemeth to me also to be a thing very unlikely that in complacency to others he should be induced to set so low a value upon his reputation as to give consent to the publication of a work for which he could expect no other than the censure of the Learned SAGR. Yea but you know that those will be much fewer than one for an hundred compared to those that shall celebrate and extoll him above the greatest wits that are or ever have been in the world He is one that hath mentioned the Peripatetick inalterability of Heaven against a troop of Astronomers and that to their greater disgrace hath foiled them at their own weapons and what do you think four or five in a Countrey that discern his triflings can do against the innumerable multitude that not being able to discover or comprehend them suffer themselves to be taken with words and so much more applaud him by how much the lesse they understand him You may adde also that those few who understand scorn to give an answer to papers so trivial and unconcludent and that upon very good reasons because to the intelligent there is no need thereof and to those that do not understand it is but labour lost SALV The most deserved punishment of their demerits would certainly be silence if there were not other reasons for which it is haply no lesse than necessary to resent their timerity one of which is that we Italians thereby incur the censure of Illiterates and attract the laughter of Forreigners and especially to such who are separated from our Religion and I could shew you many of those of no small eminency who scoff at our Academick and the many Mathematicians that are in Italic for suffering the follies of such a Fabler against Astronomers to come into the light and to be openly maintained without contradiction but this also might be dispensed with in respect of the other greater occasions of laughter wherewith we may confront them depending on the dissimulation of the intelligent touching the follies of these opponents of the Doctrines that they well enough understand SAGR. I desire not a greater proof of those mens petulancy and the infelicity of a Copernican subject to be opposed by such as understand not so much as the very first positions upon which he undertakes the quarrel SALV You will be no lesse astonished at their method in confuting the Astronomers who affirm the new Stars to be superiour to the Orbs of the Planets and peradventure in the Firmament it self SAGR. But how could you in so short a time examine all this Book which is so great a Volume and must needs contain very many demonstrations SALV I have confined my self to these his first confutations in which with twelve demonstrations founded upon the observations of twelve Astronomers who all held that the Star Anno 1572. which appeared in Cassiopeia was in the Firmament he proveth it on the contrary to be beneath the Moon conferring two by two the meridian altitudes proceeding in the method that you shall understand by and by And because I think that in the examination of this his first progression I have discovered in this Authour a great unlikelihood of his ability to conclude any thing against the Astronomers in favour of the Peripatetick Philosophers and that their opinion is more and more concludently confirmed I could not apply my self with the like patience in examining his other methods but have given a very slight glance upon them and am certain that the defect that is in these first impugnations is likewise in the rest And as you shall see by experience very few words will suffice to confute this
infinite distance are many in number namely about 30. more than those who give the Star by calculation to be below the Moon and because as it was agreed upon between us it is to be believed that the Observators have erred rather little than much it is a manifest thing that the corrections to be applied to the Observaations which make the star of an infinite altitude to reduce it lower do sooner and with lesser amendment place it in the Firmament than beneath the Moon so that all these applaud the opinion of those who put it amongst the fixed Stars You may adde that the corrections required for those emendations are much lesser than those by which the Star from an unlikely proximity may be removed to the height more favourable for this Authour as by the foregoing examples hath been seen amongst which impossible proximities there are three that seem to remove the Star from the Earths centre a lesse distance than one Semidiameter making it as it were to turn round under ground and these are those combinations wherein the Polar altitude of one of the Observators being greater than the Polar altitude of the other the elevation of the Star taken by the first is lesser than the elation of the Star taken by the latter The first of these is this of the Landgrave with Gemma where the Polar altitude of the Landgrave 51 gr 18 min. is greater than the Polar altitude of Gemma which is 50 gr 50 m. But the altitude of the Star of the Landgrave 79 gr 30 min. is lesser than that of the Star of Gemma 79 gr 45 min.   gr m.  gr m. Landgrave Polar altit 51 18 Altit of the Star 79 30 Gemma 50 50 79 45 The other two are these below   gr m.  gr m. Buschius Polar Altitude 51 10 Altit of the Star 79 20 Gemma 50 50 79 45 Reinholdus Polar Altitude 51 18 Altit of the Star 79 30 Gemma 50 50 79 45 From what I have hitherto demonstrated you may guesse how much this first way of finding out the distance of the Star and proving it sublunary introduced by the Authour maketh against himself and how much more probably and clearly the distance thereof is collected to have been amongst the more remote fixed Stars SIMP As to this particular I think that the inefficacy of the Authors demonstrations is very plainly discovered But I see that all this was comprised in but a few leaves of his Book and it may be that some other of his Arguments are more conclusive then these first SALV Rather they must needs be lesse valid if we will take those that lead the way for a proof of the rest For as it is clear the uncertainty and inconclusivenesse of those is manifestly observed to derive it self from the errours committed in the instrumental observations upon which the Polar Altitude and height of the Star was thought to have been justly taken all in effect having easily erred And yet to find the Altitude of the Pole Astronomers have had Ages of time to apply themselves to it at their leasure and the Meridian Altitudes of the Star are easier to be observed as being most terminate and yielding the Observator some time to continue the same in regard they change not sensibly in a short time as those do that are remote from the Meridian And if this be so as it is most certain what credit shall we give to Calculations founded upon Observations more numerous more difficult to be wrought more momentary in variation and we may add with Instruments more incommodious and erroneous Upon a slight perusal of the ensuing demonstrations I see that the Computations are made upon Altitudes of the Star taken in different Vertical Circles which are called by the Arabick name Azimuths in which observations moveable instruments are made use of not only in the Vertical Circles but in the Horizon also at the same time insomuch that it is requisite in the same moment that the altitude is taken to have observed in the Horizon the distance of the Virtical point in which the Star is from the Meridian Moreover after a considerable interval of time the operation must be repeated and exact account kept of the time that passed trusting either to Dials or to other observations of the Stars Such an Olio of Observations doth he set befoâ—â— you comparing them with such another made by another observer in another place with another different instrument and at another time and from this the Authour seeks to collect what would have been the Elevations of the Star and Horizontal Latitudes happened in the time and hour of the other first observations and upon such a coaequation he in the end grounds his account Now I refer it to you what credit is to be given to that which is deduced from such like workings Moreover I doubt not in the least but that if any one would torture himself with such tedious computations he would find as in those aforegoing that there were more that would favour the adverse party than the Authour But I think it not worth the while to take so much pains in a thing which is not amongst those primary ones by us understood SAGR. I am of your Opinion in this particular But this businesse being environed with so many intricacies uncertainties and errours upon what confidence have so many Astronomers positively pronounced the new Star to have been so high SALV Upon two sorts of observations most plain most easie and most certain one only of which is more than sufficient to assure us that it was scituate in the Firmament or at least by a great distance superiour to the Moon One of which is taken from the equality or little differing inequality of its distances from the Pole aswell whilst it was in the lowest part of the Meridian as when it was in the uppermost The other is its having perpetually kept the same distances from certain of the fixed Stars adjacent to it and particularly from the eleventh of Cassiopea no more remote from it than one degree and an half from which two particulars is undoubtedly inferred either the absolute want of Parallax or such a smalnesse thereof that it doth assure us with very expeditious Calculations of its great distance from the Earth SAGR. But these things were they not known to this Author and if he saw them what doth he say unto them SALV We are wont to say of one that having no reply that is able to cover his fault produceth frivolous excuses cerca di attaccarsi alle funi del cielo He strives to take hold of the Cords of Heaven but this Authour runs not to the Cords but to the Spiders Web of Heaven as you shall plainly see in our examination of these two particulars even now hinted And first that which sheweth us the Polar distances of the Observators one by one I have noted down in these brief
to be 15000. and this 27000 semidiameters of the grand Orb to wit the first seven and the second twelve times bigger than what the magnitude of the fixed Star supposed equal to the Sun did make it SIMP Methinks that to this might be answered that the motion of the starry Sphere hath since Ptolomy been observed not to be so slow as he accounted it yea if I mistake not I have heard that Copernicus himself made the Observation SALV You say very well but you alledge nothing in that which may favour the cause of the Ptolomaeans in the least who did never yet reject the motion of 36000. years in the starry Sphere for that the said tardity would make it too vast and immense For if that the said immensity was not to be supposed in Nature they ought before now to to have denied a conversion so slow as that it could not with good proportion adapt it self save onely to a Sphere of monstrous magnitude SAGR. Pray you Salviatus let us lose no more time in proceeding by the way of these proportions with people that are apt to admit things most dis-proportionate so that its impossible to win any thing upon them this way and what more disproportionate proportion can be imagined than that which these men swallow down and admit in that writing that there cannot be a more convenient way to dispose the Coelestial Spheres in order than to regulate them by the differences of the times of their periods placing from one degree to another the more slow above the more swift when they have constituted the Starry Sphere higher than the rest as being the slowest they frame another higher still than that and consequently greater and make it revolve in twenty four hours whilst the next below it moves not round under 36000. years SALV I could wish Simplicius that suspending for a time the affection rhat you bear to the followers of your opinion you would sincerely tell me whether you think that they do in their minds comprehend that magnitude which they reject afterwards as uncapable for its immensity to be ascribed to the Universe For I as to my own part think that they do not But believe that like as in the apprehension of numbers when once a man begins to passe those millions of millions the imagination is confounded and can no longer form a conceipt of the same so it happens also in comprehending immense magnitudes and distances so that there intervenes to the comprehension an effect like to that which befalleth the sense For whilest that in a serene night I look towards the Stars I judge according to sense that their distance is but a few miles and that the fixed Stars are not a jot more remote than Jupiter or Saturn nay than the Moon But without more ado consider the controversies that have past between the Astronomers and Peripatetick Philosophers upon occasion of the new Stars of Cassiopeia and of Sagittary the Astronomers placing them amongst the fixed Stars and the Philosophers believing them to be below the Moon So unable is our sense to distinguish great distances from the greatest though these be in reality many thousand times greater than those In a word I ask of thee O foolish man Doth thy imagination comprehend that vast magnitude of the Universe whâ—ch thou afterwards judgest to be too immense If thou comprehendest it wilt thou hold that thy apprehension extendeth it self farther than the Divine Power wilt thou say that thou canst imagine greater things than those which God can bring to passe But if thou apprehendest it not why wilt thou passe thy verdict upon things beyond thy comprehension SIMP All this is very well nor can it be denied but that Heaven may in greatnesse surpasse our imagination as also that God might have created it thousands of times vaster than now it is but we ought not to grant any thing to have been made in vain and to be idle in the Universe Now in that we see this admirable order of the Planets disposed about the Earth in distances proportionate for producing their effects for our advantage to what purpose is it to interpose afterwards between the sublime Orb of Saturn and the starry Sphere a vast vacancy without any star that is superfluous and to no purpose To what end For whose profit and advantage SALV Methinks we arrogate too much to our selves Simplicius whilst we will have it that the onely care of us is the adaequate work and bound beyond which the Divine Wisdome and Power doth or disposeth of nothing But I will not consent that we should so much shorten its hand but desire that we may content our selves with an assurance that God and Nature are so imployed in the governing of humane affairs that they could not more apply themselves thereto although they had no other care than onely that of mankind and this I think I am able to make out by a most pertinent and most noble example taken from the operation of the Suns light which whilest it attracteth these vapours or scorcheth that plant it attracteth it scorcheth them as if it had no more to do yea in ripening that bunch of grapes nay that one single grape it doth apply it self so that it could not be more intense if the sum of all its business had been the only maturation of that grape Now if this grape receiveth all that it is possible for it to receive from the Sun not suffering the least injury by the Suns production of a thousand other effects at the same time it would be either envy or folly to blame that grape if it should think or wish that the Sun would onely appropriate its rayes to its advantage I am confident that nothing is omitted by the Divine Providence of what concernes the government of humane affairs but that there may not be other things in the Universe that depend upon the same infinite Wisdome I cannot of my self by what my reason holds forth to me bring my self to believe However if it were not so yet should I not forbear to believe the reasons laid before me by some more sublime intelligence In the mean time if one should tell me that an immense space interposed between the Orbs of the Planets and the Starry Sphere deprived of stars and idle would be vain and uselesse as likewise that so great an immensity for receipt of the fixed stars as exceeds our utmost comprehension would be superfluous I would reply that it is rashnesse to go about to make our shallow reason judg of the Works of God and to call vain and superfluous whatsoever thing in the Universe is not subservient to us SAGR. Say rather and I believe you would say better that we know not what is subservient to us and I hold it one of the greatest vanities yea follies that can be in the World to say because I know not of what use Jupiter or Saturn are to me that
about its own centre in twenty four hours And that in the next place which is more exorbitant which happly for that reason you pass over in silence there is ascribed to it another revolution about its own centre contrary to the former of twenty four hours and which finisheth its period in a year In this my understanding apprehendeth a very great contradiction SALV As to the motion of descent it hath already been concluded not to belong to the Terrestrial Globe which did never move with any such motion nor never shall do but is if there be such a thing that propension of its parts to reunite themselves to their whole As in the next place to the Annual motion and the Diurnal these being both made towards one way are very compatible in the same manner just as if we should let a Ball trundle downwards upon a declining superficies it would in its descent along the same spontaneously revolve in it self As to the third motion assigned it by Copernicus namely about it self in a year onely to keep its Axis inclined and directed towards the same part of the Firmament I will tell you a thing worthy of great consideration namely ut tantum abest although it be made contrary to the other annual it is so far from having any repugnance or difficulty in it that naturally and without any moving cause it agreeth to any whatsoever suspended and librated body which if it shall be carried round in the circumference of a circle immediate of it self it acquireth a conversion about its own centre contrary to that which carrieth it about and of such velocity that they both finish one revolution in the same time precisely You may see this admirable and to our purpose accommodate experience if putting in a Bason of water a Ball that will swim and holding the Bason in your hand you turn round upon your toe for you shall immediatly see the Ball begin to revolve in it self with a motion contrary to that of the Bason and it shall finish its revolution when that of the Bason it shall finish Now what other is the Earth than a pensil Globe librated in tenuous and yielding aire which being carried about in a year along the circumference of a great circle must needs acquire without any other mover a revolution about its own centre annual and yet contrary to the other motion in like manner annual You shall see this effect I say but if afterwards you more narrowly consider it you shall find this to be no real thing but a meer appearance and that which you think to be a revolution in it self you will find to be a not moving at all but a continuing altogether immoveable in respect of all that which without you and without the vessel is immoveable for if in that Ball you shall make some mark and consider to what part of the Room where you are or of the Field or of Heaven it is situate you shall see that mark in yours and the vessels revolution to look alwayes towards that same part but comparing it to the vessel and to your self that are moveable it will appear to go altering its direction and with a motion contrary to yours and that of the vessel to go seeking all the points of its circumgyration so that with more reason you and the bason may be said to turn round the immoveable Ball than that it moveth round in the bason In the same manner the Earth suspended and librated in the circumference of the Grand Orbe and scituate in such sort that one of its notes as for example its North Pole looketh towards such a Star or other part of the Firmament it always keepeth directed towards the same although carried round by the annual motion about the circumference of the said Grand Orbe This alone is sufficient to make the Wonder cease and to remove all difficulties But what will Simplicius say if to this non-indigence of the co-operating cause we should adde an admirable intrinsick vertue â—f the Terrestrial Globe of looking with its determinate parts towards determinate parts of the Firmament I speak of the Magnetick vertue constantly participated by any whatsoever piece of Loade-stone And if every minute particle of that Sâ—one have in it such a vertue who will question but that the same more powerfully resides in this whole Terrestrial Globe abounding in that Magnetick matter and which happily it self as to its internal and primary substance is nothing else but a huge masse of Loade-stone SIMP Then you are one of those it seems that hold the Magnetick Phylosophy William Gilbert SALV I am for certain and think that all those that have seriously read his Book and tried his experiments will bear me company therein nor should I despair that what hath befallen me in this case might possibly happen to you also if so be a curiosity like to mine and a notice that infinite things in Nature are still conceal'd from the wits of mankind by delivering you from being captivated by this or that particular writer in natural things should but slacken the reines of your Reason and mollifie the contumacy and tenaceousnesse of your sense so as that they would not refuse to hearken sometimes to novelties never before spoken of But permit me to use this phrase the pusillanimity of vulgar Wits is come to that passe that not only like blind men they make a gift nay tribute of their own assent to whatsoever they find written by those Authours which in the infancy of their Studies were laid before them as authentick by their Tutors but refuse to hear not to say examine any new Proposition or Probleme although it not only never hath been confuted but not so much as examined or considered by their Authours Amongst which one is this of investigating what is the true proper primary interne and general matter and substance of this our Terrestrial Globe For although it never came into the mind either of Aristotle or of any one else before William Gilbert to think that it might be a Magnet so far are Aristotle and the rest from confuting this opinion yet neverthelesse I have met with many that at the very first mention of it as a Horse at his own shadow have start back and refused to discourse thereof and censured the conceipt for a vain Chymaera yea for a solemn madnesse and its possible the Book of Gilbert had never come to my hands if a Peripatetick Philosopher of great fame as I believe to free his Library from its contagion had not given it me SIMP I who ingenuously confesse my self to be one of those vulgar Wits and never till within these few dayes that I have been admitted to a share in your conferences could I pretend to have in the least withdrawn from those trite and popular paths yet for all that I think I have advantaged my self so much as that I could without
for the grandure of the Subject as also finally because I do not nor have pretended to that assent from others which I my self do not give to this conceit which I could very easily grant to be a Chymaera and a meer paradox and you Sagredus although in the Discourses past you have many times with great applause declared that you were pleased with some of my conjectures yet do I believe that that was in part more occasioned by the novelty than by the certainty of them but much more by your courtesie which did think and desire by its assent to procure me that content which we naturally use to take in the approbation and applause of our own matters and as your civility hath obliged me to you so am I also pleased with the ingenuity of Simplicius Nay his constancy in maintaining the Doctrine of his Master with so much strength undauntedness hath made me much to love him And as I am to give you thanks Sagredus for your courteous affection so of Simplicius I ask pardon if I have sometimes moved him with my too bold and resolute speaking and let him be assured that I have not done the same out of any inducement of sinister affection but onely to give him occasion to set before us more lofty fancies that might make me the more knowing SIMP There is no reason why you should make all these excuses that are needlesse and especially to me that being accustomed to be at Conferences and publique Disputes have an hundred times seen the Disputants not onely to grow hot and angry at one another but likewise to break forth into injurious words and sometimes to come very neer to blows As for the past Discourses and particulatly in this last of the reason of the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea I do not to speak the truth very well apprehend the same but by that slight Idea what ever it be that I have formed thereof to my self I confesse that your conceit seemeth to me far more ingenuous than any of all those that I ever heard besides but yet neverthelesse I esteem it not true and concluding but keeping alwayes before the eyes of my mind a solid Doctrine that I have learn't from a most learned and ingenuous person and with which it is necessary to sit down I know that both you being asked Whether God by his infinite Power and Wisdome might confer upon the Element of Water the reciprocal motion which we observe in the same in any other way than by making the containing Vessel to move I know I say that you will answer that he might and knew how to have done the same many wayes and those unimaginable to our shallow understanding upon which I forthwith conclude that this being granted it would be an extravagant boldnesse for any one to goe about to limit and confine the Divine Power and Wisdome to some one particular conjecture of his own SALV This of yours is admirable and truly Angelical Doctrine to which very exactly that other accords in like manner divine which whilst it giveth us leave to dispute touching the constitution of the World addeth withall perhaps to the end that the exercise of the minds of men might neither be discouraged nor made bold that we cannot find out the works made by his hands Let therefore the Disquisition permitted and ordain'd us by God assist us in the knowing and so much more admiring his greatnesse by how much lesse we finde our selves too dull to penetrate the profound Abysses of his infinite Wisdome SAGR. And this may serve for a final close of our four dayes Disputations after which if it seem good to Salviatus to take some time to rest himself our curiosity must of necessity grant him the same yet upon condition that when it is lesse incommodious for him he will return and satisfie my desire in particular concerning the Problemes that remain to be discust and that I have set down to be propounded at one or two other Conferences according to our agreement and above all I shall very impatiently wait to hear the Elements of the new Science of our Academick about the natural and violent local Motions And in the mean time we may according to our custome spend an hour in taking the Air in the Gondola that waiteth for us FINIS Place this Plate at the end of the fourth Dialogue A TABLE Of the most Observable PERSONS and MATTERS Mentioned in the FIRST PART of The First Tome A ABSTACT THings are exactly the same in Abstract as in Concrete 185 AIRE The part of the Aire inferiour to the Higher Mountains doth follow the Motion of the Earth 124 The motion of the Aire apt to carry with it light things but not heavy 124 The Aire alwayes touching us with the same part of it cannot make us feel it 228 It is more reasonable that the Aire be commoved by the rugged surface of the Earth than by the Celestial Motion 400 It is demonstrated inverting the Argument that the perpetual Motion of the Aire from East to West commeth from the Motion of Heaven 403 ANIMALS Animals Vide The Motion of Animals The cause of the Wearinesse that attends the Motion of Animals 244 APOLLONIUS Apollonius and Copernicus demonstrate the Retrogradations of Venus and Mercury 311 Arguing Arguments Argumentations Some in Arguing fix in their minds the Conclusion believed by them and then adapt their Reasons to that 250 One single Experiment or sound Demonstration overthroweth all Arguments meerly probable 105 A pleasant Example shewing the invalidity of some Phisical Argumentations 363 ARISTARCHUS Reason and Discourse in Aristarchus and Copernicus prevailed over manifest Sense 301 ARISTOTLE Aristotle maketh the World perfect because it hath the Threefold Dimension 2 Arist. his Demonstrations to prove the Worlds Dimensions to be three and no more 2 Aristotle his Definition of Nature either imperfect or unseasonable 7 Aristotle accomodates the Rules of Architecture to the Frame of the World and not the Frame to the Rules 8 Aristotle cannot equivocate being the Inventer of Logick 23 Aristotle his Paralogisme in proving the Earth to be in the centre of the World 24 Arist. Paralogisme another way discovered 24 Aristotle his Discourse to prove the Incorruptibility of Heaven 26 Aristotle proveth that Circular Motion hath no Contrary 26 Aristotle defective in assigning the Causes why the Elements are Generable and Corruptible 31 Aristotle would change his opinion did he see the Novelties of our Age. 37 Arist. preferres Sense before Ratiocination 42 Aristotle affirmeth the Heavens alterable rather then otherwise by his Doctrine 42 Requisites to fit a man to Philosophate well in the way of Aristotle 92 Some of Aristotles Sectators impaire his Reputation in going about to enhanse it 93 The servile Spirit of some of Arist. followers 95 Too close an adherence to Aristotle is blameable 95 Aristotle and Ptolomy argue against the Diurnal Motion ascribed to the Earth 97 A Proposition that Aristotle
supposed by the Authour Galileo to be perfectly Ordinate 10 The Sensible World 96 It hath not been hitherto proved by any whether the World be finite or infinite 293 If the Centre of the World be the same with that about which the Planets move the Sun and not the Earth is placed in it 295 WRITING Some Write what they understand not and therefore understand not what they Write 63 The Invention of Writing Stupendious above all others 88 Y YEAR The Years beginning and ending which Ptolomy and his Followers could never positively assign is exactly determined by the Copernican Hypothesis 469 THE END OF THE TABLE THE Ancient and Modern DOCTRINE OF Holy Fathers AND Iudicious Divines CONCERNING The rash citation of the Testimony of SACRED SCRIPTURE in Conclusions meerly Natural and that may be proved by Sensible Experiments and Necessary Demonstrations Written some years since to Gratifie The most SERENE CHRISTINA LOTHARINGA Arch-Dutchess of TVSCANY By GALILAEO GALILAEI A Gentleman of Florence and Chief Philosopher and Mathematician to His most Serene Highness the Grand DVKE And now rendred into English from the Italian BY THOMAS SALUSBURY Naturam Rerum invenire difficile ubi inveneris indicare in vulgus nefas Plato LONDON Printed by WILLIAM LEYBOURN 1661. TO Her most Serene HIGHNES THE Gran Duchess Mother SOme years since as Your most Serene Highness well knoweth I did discover many particulars in Heaven that had been unseen and unheard of untill this our Age which as well for their novelty as for certain consequences which depend upon them clashing with some Physical Propositions commonly received by the Schools did stir up against me no small number of such as professed the vulgar Philosophy in the Universities as if I had with my own hand newly placed these things in Heaven to obscure and disturb Nature and the Sciences who forgetting that the multitude of Truths contribute and concur to the investigation augmentation and establishment of the Arts and not to their diminution and destruction and at the same time shewing themselves more affectionate to their own Opinions than to Truth went about to deny and to disprove those Novelties of which their very sense had they but pleased to have intentsly beheld them would have rendered them thorowly assured And to this purpose they alledged sundry things and published certain Papers fraughted with vain discourses and which was a more gross errour interwoven with the attestations of the Sacred Scriptures taken from places by them not rightly understood and which did not any thing concern the point for which they were produced Into which errour perhaps they would not have run if they had but been advertised of a most profitable Document which S. Augustine giveth us concerning our proceeding warily in making positive determinations in points that are obscure and hard to be understood by the meer help of ratiocination where treating as we of a certain natural conclusion concerning Celestial Bodies he thus writes But now having evermore a respect to the moderation of pious Gravity we ought to believe nothing unadvisedly in a doubtful point lest we conceive a prejudice against that in favour to our Errour which Truth hereafter may discover to be no wise contrary to the Sacred Books either of the Old or New Testament It hath since come to pass that Time hath by degrees discovered to every one the truths before by me indicated and together with the truth of the fact a discovery hath been made of the difference of humours between those who simply and without passion did refuse to admit such like Phaenomena for true and those who to their incredulity had added some discomposed affection For as those who were better grounded in the Science of Astronomy and Natural Philosophy became satisfied upon my first intimation of the news so all those who stood not in the Negative or in doubt for any other reason but because it was an unlookt-for-Novelty and because they had not an occasion of seeing a sensible experiment thereof did by degrees come to satisfie themselves But those who besides the love they bore to to their first Errour have I know not what imaginary interess to render them disaffected not so much towards the things as towards the Author of them not being able any longer to deny them conceal themselves under an obstinate silence and being exasperated more than ever by that whereby those others were satisfied and convinced they divert their thoughts to other projects and seek to prejudice me some other wayes of whom I profess that I would make no more account than I have done of those who heretofore have contradicted me at whom I alwaies laugh as being assured of the issue that the business is to have but that I see that those new Calumnies and Persecutions do not determine in our greater or lesser Learning in which I will scarce pretend to any thing but extend so far as to attempt to asperse me with Crimes which ought to be and are more abhorred by me than Death it self Nor ought I to content my self that they are known to be unjust by those onely who know me and them but by all men whatsoever They persisting therefore in their first Resolution Of ruining me and whatsoever is mine by all imaginable waies and knowing how that I in my Studies of Astronomy and Philosophy hold as to the World 's Systeme That the Sun without changing place is situate in the Centre of the Conversion of the Celestial Orbes and that the Earth convertible about its own Axis moveth it self about the Sun And moreover understanding that I proceed to maintain this Position not onely by refuting the Reasons of Ptolomy and Aristotle but by producing many on the contrary and in particular some Physical pertaining to Natural Effects the causes of which perhaps can be by no other way assigned and others Astronomical depending upon many circumstances and encounters of new Discoveries in Heaven which manifestly confute the Ptolomaick Systeme and admirably agree with and confirm this other Hypothesis and possibly being ashamed to see the known truth of other Positions by me asserted different from those that have been commonly received and therefore distrusting their defence so long as they should continue in the Field of Philosophy for thâ—se respects I say they have resolved to try whether they could make a Shield for the fallacies of their Arguments of the Mantle of a feigned Religion and of the Authority of the Sacred Scriptures applyed by them with little judgment to the confutation of such Reasons of mine as they had neither understood nor so much as heard And first they have indeavoured as much as in them lay to divulge an opiniou thorow the Universe that those Propositions are contrary to the Holy Letters and consequently Damnable and Heretical And thereupon perceiving that for the most part the inclination of Mans Nature is more prone to imbrace those enterprizes whereby his Neighbour may
the said Divine Wisdome surpasseth all humane Judgment and Conjecture But that that self same God who hath indued us with Senses Discourse and Understanding hath intended laying aside the use of these to give the knowledg of those things by other means which we may attain by these so as that even in those Natural Conclusions which either by Sensible Experiments or Necessary Demonstrations are set before our eyes or our Understanding we ought to deny Sense and Reason I do not conceive that I am bound to believe it and especially in those Sciences of which but a small part and that divided into Conclusions is to be found in the Scripture Such as for instance is that of Astronomy of which there is so small a part in Holy Writ that it doth not so much as name any of the Planets except the Sun and the Moon and once or twice onely Venus under the name of Lucifer For if the Holy Writers had had any intention to perswade People to believe the Dispositions and Motions of the Coelestial Bodies and that consequently we are still to derive that knowledge from the Sacred Books they would not in my opinion have spoken so little thereof that it is as much as nothing in comparison of the infinite admirable Conclusions which in that Science are comprized and demonstrated Nay that the Authours of the Holy Volumes did not only not pretend to teach us the Constitutions and Motions of the Heavens and Stars their Figures Magnitudes and Distances but that intentionally albeit that all these things were very well known unto them they forbore to speak of them is the opinion of the Most Holy Most Learned Fathers and in S. Augustine we read the following words It is likewise commonly asked of what Form and Figure we may believe Heaven to be according to the Scriptures For many contend much about those matters which the greater prudence of our Authors hath forborn to speak of as nothing furthering their Learners in relation to a blessed life and which is the chiefest thing taking up much of that time which should be spent in holy exercises For what is it to me whether Heaven as a Sphere doth on all sides environ the Earth a Mass ballanced in the middle of the World or whether like a Dish it doth onely cover or overcast the same But because belief of Scripture is urged for that cause which we have oft mentioned that is That none through ignorance of Divine Phrases when they shall find any thing of this nature in or hear any thing cited out of our Bibles which may seem to oppose manifest Conclusions should be induced to suspect their truth when they admonish relate deliver more profitable matters Briefly be it spoken touching the Figure of Heaven that our Authors knew the truth But the H. Spirit would not that men should learn what is profitable to none for salvation And the same intentional silence of these sacred Penmen in determining what is to be believed of these accidents of the Celestial Bodies is again hinted to us by the same Father in the ensuing 10. Chapter upon the Question Whether we are to believe that Heaven moveth or standeth still in these words There are some of the Brethren that start a question concerning the motion of Heaven Whether it be fixed or moved For if it be moved say they how is it a Firmament If it stand still how do these Stars which are held to be fixed go round from East to West the more Northern performing shorter Circuits near the Pole so that Heaven if there be another Pole to us unknown may seem to revolve upon some other Axis but if there be not another Pole it may be thought to move as a Discus To whom I reply that these points require many subtil and profound Reasons for the making out whether they be really so or no the undertakeing and discussing of which is neither consistent with my leasure nor their duty vvhom I desire to instruct in the necessary matters more directly conducing to their salvation and to the benefit of The Holy Church From which that we may come nearer to our particular case it necessarily followeth that the Holy Ghost not having intended to teach us whether Heaven moveth or standeth still nor whether its Figure be in Form of a Sphere or of a Discus or distended in Planum Nor whether the Earth be contained in the Centre of it or on one side he hath much less had an intention to assure us of other Conclusions of the same kinde and in such a manner connected to these already named that without the dedermination of them one can neither affirm one or the other part which are The determining of the Motion and Rest of the said Earth and of the Sun And if the same Holy Spirit hath purposely pretermitted to teach us those Propositions as nothing concerning his intention that is our salvation how can it be affirmed that the holding of one part rather than the other should be so necessary as that it is de Fide and the other erronious Can an Opinion be Heretical and yet nothing concerning the salvation of souls Or can it be said that the Holy Ghost purposed not to teach us a thing that concerned our salvation I might here insert the Opinion of an Ecclesiastical Person raised to the degree of Eminentissimo to wit That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how we shall go to Heaven and not how Heaven goeth But let us return to consider how much necessary Demonstrations and sensible Experiments ought to be esteemed in Natural Conclusions and of what Authority Holy and Learned Divines have accounted them from whom amongst an hundred other attestations we have these that follow We must also carefully heed and altogether avoid in handling the Doctrine of Moses to avouch or speak any thing affirmatively and confidently which contradicteth the manifest Experiments and Reasons of Philosophy or other Sciences For since all Truth is agreeable to Truth the Truth of Holy Writ cannot be contrary to the solid Reasons and Experiments of Humane Learning And in St. Augustine we read If any one shall object the Authority of Sacred Writ against clear and manifest Reason he that doth so knows not what he undertakes For he objects against the Truth not the sense of the Scripture which is beyond his comprehension but rather his own not what is in it but what finding it in himself he fancyed to be in it This granted and it being true as hath been said that two Truths cannot be contrary to each other it is the office of a Judicious Expositor to study to finde the true Senses of Sacred Texts which undoubtedly shall accord with those Natural Conclusions of which manifest Sense and Necessary Demonstrations had before made us sure and certain Yea in regard that the Scriptures as hath been said
prefer them before those of other men and to believe that better and more agreeable to the intention of the Sacred Volumes cannot be produced Supposing therefore in the first place that in the Miracle of Joshuah the whole Systeme of the Celestial Revolutions stood still according to the judgement of the afore-named Authors And this is the rather to be admitted to the end that by the staying of one alone all the Constitutions might not be confounded and a great disorder needlesly introduced in the whole course of Nature I come in the second place to consider how the Solar Body although stable in one constant place doth nevertheless revolve in it self making an entire Conversion in the space of a Month or thereabouts as I conceive I have solidly demonstrated in my Letters Delle Machie Solari Which motion we sensibly see to be in the upper part of its Globe inclined towards the South and thence towards the lower part to encline towards the North just in the same manner as all the other Orbs of the Planets do Thirdly If we respect the Nobility of the Sun and his being the Fountain of Light by which as I necessarily demonstrate not onely the Moon and Earth but all the other Planets all in the same manner dark of themselves become illuminated I conceive that it will be no unlogicall Illation to say That it as the Grand Minister of Nature and in a certain sense the Soul and Heart of the World infuseth into the other Bodies which environ it not onely Light but Motion also by revolving in it self So that in the same manner that the motion of the Heart of an Animal ceasing all the other motions of its Members would cease so the Conversion of the Sun ceasing 〈◊〉 Conversions of all the Planets would stand still And though I could produce the testimonies of many grave Writers to prove the admirable power and influence of the Sun I will content my self with one sole place of Holy Dionisius Areopagita in his Book de Divinis Nominibus who thus writes of the Sun His Light gathereth and converts all things to himself which are seen moved illustrated wax hot and in a word those things which are preserved by his splendor Wherefore the Sun is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that he collecteth and gathereth together all things dispersed And a little after of the Sun again he adds If this Sun which we see as touching the Essences and Qualities of those things which fall vvithin our Sense being very many and different yet if he vvho is one and equally bestovves his Light doth renew nourish defend perfect divide conjoyn cherish make fruitfull encrease change fix produce move and fashion all living creatures And every thing in this Vniverse at this Pleasure is partaker of one and the same Sun and the causes of many things which participate of him are equally auticipated in him Certainly by greater reason c. The Sun therefore being the Fountain of Light and Principle of Motion God intending that at the Command of Joshua all the World 's Systeme should continue many hours in the same state it sufficeth to make the Sun stand still upon whose stay all the other Conversions ceasing the Earth the Moon the Sun did abide in the same Constitution as before as likewise all the other Planets Nor in all that time did the Day decline towards Night but it was miraculously prolonged And in this manner upon the standing still of the Sun without altering or in the least disturbing the other Aspects and mutual Positions of the Stars the Day might be lengthned on Earth which exactly agreeth with the Litteral sense of the Sacred Text. But that of which if I be not mistaken we are to make no small account is That by help of this Copernican Hypothesis we have the Litteral apert and Natural Sense of another particular that we read of in the same Miracle which is That the Sun stood still in Medio Caeli Upon which passage grave Divines raise many questions in regard it seemeth very probable That when Joshuah desired the lengthning of the Day the Sun was near setting and not in the Meridian for if it had been in the Meridian it being then about the Summer Solstice and consequently the dayes being at the longest it doth not seem likely that it was necessary to pray for the lengthning of the day to prosecute Victory in a Battail the space of seven hours and more which remained to Night being sufficient for that purpose Upon which Grave Divines have been induced to think that the Sun was near setting And so the words themselves seem to sound saying Ne movearis Sol ne movearis For if it had been in the Meridian either it had been needless to have asked a Mircale or it would have been sufficient to have onely praid for some retardment Of this opinion is Cajetan to which subscribeth Magaglianes confirming it by saying that Joshua had that very day done so many other things before his commanding the Sun as were not possibly to be dispatch't in half a day Whereupon they are forced to read the Words in Medio Coeli to confess the truth with a little harshness saying that they import no more than this That the Sun stood still being in our Hemisphere that is above the Horizon But if I do not erre we shall avoid that and all other harsh expositions if according to the Copernican Systeme we place the Sun in the midst that is in the Centre of the Coelestial Orbes and of the Planetary Conversions as it is most requisite to do For supposing any hour of the day either Noon or any other as you shall please neerer to the Evening the Day was lengthened and all the Coelestial Revolutions stayed by the Suns standing still In the midst that is in the Centre of Heaven where it resides A Sense so much the more accomodate to the Letter besides what hath been said already in that if the Text had desired to have affirmed the Suns Rest to have been caused at Noon-day the proper expression of it had been to say It stood still at Noon-day or in the Meridian Circle and not in the midst of Heaven In regard that the true and only Middle of a Spherical Body as is Heaven is the Centre Again as to other places of Scripture which seem contrary to this position I do not doubt but that if it were acknowledged for True and Demonstrated those very Divines who so long as they repute it false hold those places incapable of Expositions that agree with it would finde such Interpretations for them as should very well suit therewith and especially if to the knowledge of Divine Learning they would but adde some knowledge of the Astronomical Sciences And as at present whilst they deem it false they think they meet in Scripture only with such places as make against it if they shall but once have entertained
by age or consume by wormes nor sway and leane to this or that side that the Seats and Nests of Living Creatures are not molested that the Mountains and Shores stand immoveable against the violence of the Winds and Waves as they were at the beginning But the Psalmist addeth a most Elegant Hypothesis of the Separation of the Waters from the Continent or Main-land and adorns it with the production of Fountains and the benefits that Springs and Rocks exhibit to Birds and Beasts Nor doth he omit the apparelling the Earths Surface mentioned by Moses amongst the works of the third Day but more sublimely describeth it in his Case in expressions infused from Divine Inspiration and flourisheth out the commemoration of the many commodities which redound from that Exornation for the Nourishment and Comfort of Man and Covert of Beasts The fourth part begins at Verse 20. celebrating the fourth dayes work viz. The Sun and Moon but chiefly the commodiousnesse of those things which in their Seasons befall to all Living Creatures and to Man this being the subject matter of his Discourse So that it plainly appeareth he acted not the part of an Astronomer For if he had he would not then have omitted to mention the five Planets than whose moiton nothing is more admirable nothing more excellent nothing that can more evidently set forth the Wisdome of the Creator amongst the Learned The fifth part begins Verse 25. with the fifth Dayes work And it stores the Seas with Fishes and covers them with Ships The sixth part is more obscurely hinted at Verse 28. and alludeth to the Land-Creatures that were created the sixth day And lastly he declareth the goodnesse of God in general who daily createth and preserveth all things So that whatever he said of the World is in relation to Living Creatures He speaks of nothing but what is granted on all hands for that it was his intent to extol things known and not to dive into hidden matters but to invite men to contemplate the Benefits that redound unto them from the works of each of these dayes And I do also beseech my Reader not forgetting the Divine Goodnesse conferred on Mankind the consideration of which the Psalmist doth chiefly urge that when he returneth from the Temple and enters into the School of Astronomy he would with me praise and admire the Wisdome and Greatnesse of the Creator which I discover to him by a more narrow explication of the Worlds Form the Disquisition of Causes and Detection of the Errours of Sight And so he will not onely extoll the Bounty of God in the preservation of Living Creatures of all kindes and establishment of the Earth but even in its Motion also which is so strange so admirable he will acknowledge the Wisdome of the Creator But he who is so stupid as not to comprehend the Science of Astronomy or so weak and scrupulous as to think it an offence of Piety to adhere to Copernicus him I advise that leaving the Study of Astronomy and censuring the opinions of Philosophers at pleasure he betake himself to his own concerns and that desisting from further pursuit of these intricate Studies he keep at home and manure his own Ground and with those Eyes wherewith alone he seeth being elevated towards this to be admired Heaven let him pour forth his whole heart in thanks and praises to God the Creator and assure himself that he shall therein perform as much Worship to God as the Astronomer on whom God hath bestowed this Gift that though he seeth more clearly with the Eye of his Understanding yet whatever he hath attained to he is both able and willing to extoll his God above it And thus much concerning the Authority of Sacred Scripture Now as touching the opinions of the Saints about these Natural Points I answer in one word That in Theology the weight of Authority but in Philosophy the weight of Reason is to be considered Therefore Sacred was Lactantius who denyed the Earths rotundity Sacred was Augustine who granted the Earth to be round but denyed the Antipodes Sacred is the Liturgy of our Moderns who admit the smallnesse of the Earth but deny its Motion But to me more sacred than all these is Truth who with respect to the Doctors of the Church do demonstrate from Philosophy that the Earth is both round circumhabited by Antipodes of a most contemptible smalnesse and in a word that it is ranked amongst the Planets AN ABSTRACT OF Some passages in the Commentaries of Didacus à Stunica OF SALAMANCA Upon JOB The Toledo Edition Printed by JOHN RODERICK Anno 1584 in Quarto Pag. 205. seqq on these Words Chap. 9. Verse 6. Who shaketh the Earth out of her place and the Pillars thereof Tremble THe Sacred Pen-man here sets down another effect whereby God sheweth his Almighty Power joyned with infinite Wisdom Which place though it must be confessed very difficult to understand might be greatly cleared by the Opinion of the Pythagorians who hold the Earth to be moved of its own Nature and that the Motion of the Stars can no other way be ascertained they being so extreamly different in tardity and velocity Of which judgement was Philolaus and Heraclides Ponticus as Plutarch relateth in his Book De Placitis Philosophorum Who were followed by Numa Pompilius and which I more regard The Divine Plato in his old age insomuch that he affirmed that it was most absurd to think otherwise as the same Plutarch tells us in his Numa And Hypocrates in his Book De Flatibus calleth the Air 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 i. e. The Earths Chariot But in this our Age Copernicus doth demonstrate the courses of the Blanets to be according to this Opinion Nor is it to be doubted but that the Planets Places may be more exactly and certainly assigned by his Doctrine than by Ptolomies Great Almogest or Systeme or the Opinions of any others For its manifest that Ptolomy could never describe either the Motion of the Equinoxes or assign the certain and positive beginning of the Year the which he ingeniously confesseth in Lib. 3. De Almagest Magnum Ch. 2. and which he leaveth to be discovered in after times by those Astronomers who coming into the World much later than he might be able to invent some way to make more accurate observations And although the Alphonsines Thebith Ben Core have attempted to explain them yet it appeareth that they have done as much as nothing For the Positions of the Alphonsines disagree amongst themselves as Ricius proveth And although the Reason of Thebith be more acute and that thereby he determined the certain beginning of the year being that which Ptolomy sought for yet it is now clear that the Progressions of the Equinoxes are much longer than he conceived they could be Moreover the Sun is found to be much nearer to us than it was held to be in times past by above fourty thousand
ascribes to the Earth Ends and Foundations which yet it hath not to the Sea a Depth not to be fathomed to Death which is a Privation and consequently a Non-entity it appropriates Actions Motion Passions and other such like Accidents of all which it is deprived as also Epithites and Adjuncts which really cannot suit with it Is not the bitternesse of Death past 1 Sam. 15. 32. Let death come upon them Psal 6. He hath prepared the Instruments of Death Psal. 7. 14. Thou raisest me from the gates of Death Psal. 84. In the midst of the shadow of Death Psal. 23. Love is strong as Death Cant. 8. 9. The First-Born of Death Job 18. 13. Destruction and Death say c. Job 28. 22. And who knows not that the whole History of the rich Glutton doth consist of the like phrases of Vulgar Speech So Ecclesiasticus Chap. 27. vers 11. The godly man abideth in wisdome as the Sun but a fool changeth as the Moon and yet the Moon according to the real truth of the matter no wayes changeth but abides the same for ever as Astronomers demonstrate one half thereof remaining alwayes lucid and the other alwayes opacous Not at any time doth this state vary in it unlesse in respect of us and according to the opinion of the Vulgar Hence it is cleer that the holy Scripture speaks according to the common form of speech used amongst the unlearned and according to the appearance of things and not according to their true Existence In like manner Genes 1. in the description of the Creation of all things the Light is said to be made first of all and yet it followeth in the Text And the Evening and the Morning made the first day and a little after the several Acts of the Creation are distinguished and assigned to several days and concerning each of them it is said in the Text And the Evening and the Morning made the second day and then the third day the fourth day c. Hence many doubts arise all which I shall propound according to the common Systeme that it may appear even from the Hypothesis of that Systeme that the sacred Scripture sometimes for the avoyding of emergent difficulties is to be understood in a vulgar sense and meaning and in respect of us and not according to the nature of things Which distinction even Aristotle himself seemeth to have hinted when he saith * Some things are more intelligible to us others by nature or secundum se. First therefore If the light were made before heaven then it rolled about without heaven to the making of the distinction of Day and Night Now this is contrary to the very doctrine of these men who affirm that no Coelestial Body can be moved unlesse per accidens and by the motion of Heaven and as a knot in a board at the motion of the board Again if it be said that the Light was created at the same time with Heaven and began to be moved with Heaven another doubt ariseth that likewise opposeth the foresaid common Hypothesis For it being said that Day and Night Morning and Evening were made that same is either in respect of the Universe or onely in respect of the Earth and us If so be that the Sun turning round according to the Hypothesis of the Common Systeme doth not cause the Night and Day but only to opacous Bodies which are destitute of all other light but that of the Sun whilst in their half part which is their Hemisphaere and no more for that the Suns light passeth over but one half of an opacous Body unless a very small matter more in those of lesser bulk they are illuminated by the Suns aspect the other half remaining dark and tenebrose by reason of a shadow proceeding from its own Body Therefore the distinction of dayes by the light of heaven according to the description of them in the sacred Scriptures must not be understood absolutely and secundum se and Nature her self but in respect of the Earth and of us its inhabitants and consequently secundum nos 'T is not therefore new nor unusual in sacred Scripture to speak of things secundum nos and only in respect of us and secundum apparentiam but not secundum se and rei naturam or Absolutely and Simply And if any one would understand these Days of sacred Scripture not only secundum nos but also secundum naturam as circulations of Coelestial Light returning to the self same point from whence it did at first proceed so as that there needs no respect to be had to Night or to Darknesse for which sole reason we are fain to imbrace the Interpretation of sacred Scripture secundum nos In opposition to this we may thus argue If the sacred Scripture be understood to speak absolutely of iterated and successive circulations of light and not respectu nostri as if these words Evening and Morning had never been inserted which in their natural acceptation denote the Suns habitude to us and to the Earth For that the Morning is that time when the Sun begins to wax light and to rise above the Horizon in the East and become visible in our Hemisphaere and Evening is the time in which the Sun declines in the West and approacheth with its light neerer to the other opposite Horizon and Hemisphaere which is contiguous to this of ours But the word Day is a Co-relative to the word Night From hence therefore it evidently appeareth that these three words Evening Morning and Day cannot be understood of a Circulation of Light secundum se and absolutè but only secundum nos and respectu nostri and in that sense indeed the Morning and Evening do make the Night and Day In like manner Gen. 1. 16. it is said God made two great Lights the greater Light to rule the Day and the lesser Light to rule the Night and the Stars Where both in the Proposition and in the specification of it things are spoken which are very disagreeing with Coelestial Bodies Therefore those words are in that place to be interpreted according to the foresaid Rules namely according to the third and fourth so that they may be said to be understood according to the sense of the vulgar and the common way of speaking which is all one as if we should say secundum apparentiam and secundum nos vel respectu nostri For first it is said in the Proposition And God made two great Lights meaning by them the Sun and Moon whereas according to the truth of the matter these are not the Greater Lights For although the Sun may be reckoned amongst the Greater the Moon may not be so unless in respect of us Because amongst those that are absolutely the Greater and a little lesser than the Sun nay in a manner equal to it and far bigger than the Moon we may with great reason enumerate Saturn or some of the Fixed Stars of the first
not a Supreme or Middle Body And so to come down from Heaven especially the Empyrian to it as it is accepted in the Descent of Christ from Heaven to his Holy Incarnation and from it to go up to Heaven as in Christs return to Heaven in his Glorious Ascention is truly and properly to Descend from the Circumference to the Centre and to ascend from the parts which are nearest to the Centre of the World to its utmost Circumference This Maxim therefore may easily and according to truth explain Theologicall Propositions and this is so much the more confirmed in that as I have observed almost all Texts of Sacred Scripture which oppose the Earth to Heaven are most conveniently and aptly understood of the Empyrial Heaven being the Highest of all the Heavens and Spiritual in respect of its end but not of the inferiour or intermediate Heavens which are a Corporeal and were framed for the benefit of Corporeal Creatures and thus when in the Plural Number Heavens are mentioned then all the Heavens promiscuously and without distinction are to be understood as well the Empyrian it self as the Inferiour Heavens And this Exposition indeed any man that doth but take notice of it may find to be most true And so for this Reason the Third Heaveu into which St. Paul was wrapt up by this Maxim may be taken for the Empyrean if for the the First Heaven we understand that immense Space of Erratick and Moveable Bodies illuminated by the Sun in which are comprehended the Planets as also the Earth moveable and the Sun immoveable Who like a King upon his August Tribunal sits with venerable Majesty immoveable and constant in Centre of all the Sphaeres and with his Divine Beames doth bountifully exhilerate all Coelestial Bodies that stand in need of his vital Light for which they cravingly wander about him and doth liberally and on every side comfort and illustrate the Theatre of the whole World and all its parts even the very least like an immortal and perpetual Lamp of high and unspeakable value The Second Heaven shall be the Starry Heaven commonly called the Eighth Sphaere or the Firmament wherein are all the Fixed Starrs which according to this Opinion of Pythagoras is like as the Sun and Centre void of all Motion the Centre and utmost Circumference mutually agreeing with each other in Immobility And the Third shall be the Empyrean Heaven that is the Seat of the Blessed And in this manner we may come to explain and understand that admirable Secret and profound Mystery aenigmatically revealed by Plato to Dionysius of Syracuse All things are about the King of all things Second things about the second and Third things about the Third For that God being the Centre of Spiritual things the Sun of Corporeal Christ of those that are Mixt or made up of both things do doubtlesse depend of that of these three Centres that is most correspondent and proportionable to them and the Centre is ever adjudged to be the nobler and worthier place and therefore in Animals the Heart in Vegitables the Pith or Kernell wherein the Seed lyeth that conserveth their perpetuity and virtually includes the whole Plant are in the Midst and in the Centre and thus much shall suffice to have hinted at since there may another occasion offer it self for a larger Explication of these things By this Maxim the Authorities and Arguments of the Third Fourth and Fifth Classes are resolved It may be added withall that even the Sun Mercury and Venus that is to say in respect of the Earth are to be thought aboue and not beneath the Earth it self although in respect of the Universe yea and also absolutely they are below The reason is because in respect of the Earth they alwayes appear above its Surface and although they do not environe it yet by the Motion of the said Earth they behold one while one part another while another part of its Circumference Since therefore those things which in a Sphaerical Body are nearer to the Circumference and more remote from the Cenrre are said to be above but those that are next adjoyning to the Centre are said to be below it clearly followeth that whilst the Sun Mercury and Venus are not only turned towards the Surface and Circumference of the said Earth but are at a very great distance without it successively turned about it and every way have a view of it and are very far remote from its Centre they may in respect of the said Earth be said to be above it as also on the other side the Eâ—ath in respect of them may be said to be beneath howbeit on the contrary in respect of the Universe the Earth in reality is much higher than they And thus is salved the Authority of Ecclesiastes in many places expressing those things that are or are done on the Earth in these words Which are done or which are under the Sun And in the same manner those words are reduced to their true Sense wherein it is said That we are under the Sun and under the Moon whereupon Terrene things are expressed by the name of Sublunary The Sixth Classis threatneth a difficulty which is common as well to this of Copernicus as to the Vulgar Opinion so that they are both alike concerned in the solution of it But so far as it opposeth that of Copernicus its answer is easy from the First Maxim But that which is added in the Fourth Classe That it followeth from this Opinion that Hell for that it is included by the Earth as is commonly held doth move circularly about the Sun and in Heaven and that so Hell it self will be found to be in Heaven discovers in my judgment nothing but Ignorance and Calumny that insinuate the belief of their Arguments rather by a corrupt sense of the Words than by solid Reasons taken from the bosome of the Nature of things For in this place Heaven is no wise to be taken for Paradice nor according to the Sense of Common Opinion but as hath been said above according to the Copernican Hypothesis for the subtilest and Purest Aire far more tenuous and rare than this of ours whereupon the Solid Bodies of the Stars Moon and Earth in their Circular and Ordinary Motions do passe thorow it the Sphaere of Fire being by this Opinion taken away And as according to the Common Opinion it was no absurdity to say That Hell being demerged in the Centre of the Earth and of the World it self hath Heaven and Paradice above and below it yea and on all sides of it and that it is in the middle of all the Coelestial Bodies as if it were posited in a more unworthy place so neither in this will it be deemed an Error if from the other System which differeth not much from the Vulgar one those or the like things follow as do in that For both in that of Copernicus and the Vulgar
averred by Solomon saying For in the long Garment that he had on was the whole World and in the foure rows of the stones was the Glory of the Fathers graven and thy Majesty in the Diadem of his Head The same likewise is signified to us by the Grape and in like manner by all other Fruits but especially the Figg Grape and Pomegranate whence these three are almost alwayes placed together in the Sacred Scriptures So Numb 20. the People of Israel complain against Moses and Aaron Wherefore have you made us to come up out of Egypt to bring us into this evil place where there can grow no Seed neither is there either Figgs or Vines or Pomegranates Intimating that these kinds of Fruits were preferred by them for their excellency before all others And in Joel The Vine is dryed up and the Figg-tree languisheth the Pomegranate-tree the Palm-tree also and the Apple-tree even all the Trees of the field are withered because joy is withered away from the Sons of Men. Likewise in Haggai Is the seed yet in the Bud and hath as yet the Vine and the Fig-tree and the Pomegranate and the Olive-tree brought forth In like manner in Deuteronomie the Land of Promise is commended to be A Land of Wheat and Barly and Vines in which grow Figg-trees and Pomegranates and Olive-trees c. And in the Structure of the Temple undertaken by Solomon upon Divine Inspiration the Chapiters of the Pillars were adorned with several rowes of Pomegranates which particular is mentioned not in one but many places of Holy Writ Yea and sometimes accidentally and occasionally the Holy hath Ghost aenigmatically represented this most admirable and Most Wise Structure of the World the Order of the Heavens and the disposure of Creatures Spiritual and Corporeal by Emblems Parables and Figures least they should be as it were dazled and blinded by the refulgent splendor of so excellent an Object Hence we see that in these Doctrinal Dubious Points we may discourse in such manner by help of the Holy Scripture as is meet for the understanding of the Prophets which seeing they are very obscure they shall be fully understood and may be aptly applyed only then when they shall be fulfilled and not before So also when once the true Systeme of the Universe is found out then and noâ— till then the meaning of these Figures and Aenigma's shall be made known unto us Thus before the coming of the Son of God had discovered unto us the Mystery of the Holy Trinity none were able to comprehend or imagine what was concealed under those words In Principio creavit Elohim Coelum Terram for that they did not see how the Noun Plural Elohim which is as much as to say Dij Gods should be joyned with the Verb Singular Creavit But the Mystery of the Unity of Essence and Trinity of Persons in God being revealed it was presently known that the Singular Number Creavit had reference to the Unity of Essence in regard that the Works of the Trinity ad extra are indivisible and the Plural Elohiâ— to the Persons Who I pray in elder times could have found out this Mystery And thus the Name of God is thrice repeated in Psal. 67. God even our God shall blesse us God shall blesse us c. Which at first might seem a Pleonasme and superfluous repetition but afterwards it was evident that David did there set out the Benedictions of several Persons implyed to wit the Father Son and Holy Ghost Innumerable Examples of the like kind may be found in the Sacred Leaves Therefore to conclude I will say with David Psal. 92. Oh Lord how glorious are thy Works thy thoughts are very deep an unwiseman knoweth not and a fool doth not understand these things These are the particulars that I have thought fit to offer as a Divine concerning the not-improbable Opinion of the Mobility of the Earth and Stability of the Sun which I hope will be acceptable to you Reverend Sir out of the love and diligence wherewith you persue Virtue and Learning But to the end that you may also receive an account of my other Studies I hope very shortly to publish in Print my Second Tome Of the Institutions of all Learnings which shall containe all the Liberall Arts as I have already signified in that Syntax and Spicimen by me heretofore put forth and published under your Name The other five following Tomes by me promised which shall treat of Phylosophy and Theology are not altogether so forward nevertheless they will be speedily finished In the mean time there will come forth my Book Concerning Oracles now finished together with a Treatise Of Artificial Divination And for a pledge thereof I send you at this time annexed to this Epistle a Tract Concerning Natural Cosmological Divination or of Natural Prognosticks and Presages of the Changes of Weather and other things which fall within the compasse of Nature God grant you all Happinesse NAPLES from the Covent of the Carmelites Jan. 6. 1615. Most Reverend Sir Your Most Humble Servant PAOLO ANTONIO FOSCARINI FINIS Imprimatur P. ANT. GHIBERT Vic. Gen. JOANNES LONGUS Can. Cur. Archiep. Neap. THEOL Vidit MATHEMATICAL COLLECTIONS AND TRANSLATIONS THE SECOND TOME THE SECOND PART Containing I. D. BENEDICTUS CASTELLUS his DISCOURSE of the MENSURATION of RUNNING WATERS II. His Geometrical DEMONSTRATIONS of the Measure of RUNNING WATERS III. His LETTERS and CONSIDERATIONS touching the Draining of FENNS Diversions of RIVERS c. IV. D. CORSINUS His RELATION of the state of the Inundations c. in the Territories of BOLOGNA and FERRARA By THOMAS SALUSBURY Esq. LONDON Printed by WILLIAM LEYBOURNE MDCLXI OF THE MENSURATION OF RUNNING WATERS An Excellent Piece Written in ITALIAN BY DON BENEDETTO CASTELLI Abbot of St. BENEDETTO ALOYSIO and Professour of the Mathematicks to Pope URBAN VIII in ROME Englished from the Third and best Edition with the addition of a Second Book not before extant By THOMAS SALUSBURY LONDON Printed by WILLIAM LEYBOURN 1661. THE AUTHOURS EPISTLE TO Pope VRBAN VIII I Lay at the Feet of your Holinesse these my Considerations concerning the MENSURATION OF RUNNING WATERS Wherein if I shall have succeeded being a matter so difficult and unhandled by Writers both Ancient Modern the discovery of any thing of truth hath been the Effect of Your Holinesses Command and if through inability I have missed the Mark the same Command will serve me for an Excuse with Men of better Judgment and more especially with Your Holinesse to whom I humbly prostrate my self and kisse Your Sacred Feet From ROME Your Holinesses Most humble Servant BENEDETTO A Monk of Cassino AN ACCOUNT OF THE Authour and Work DON BENEDETTO CASTELLI the famous Authour of these ensuing Discourses of the Mensuration of Running Waters is descended from the Worshipful FAMILY of the CASTELLII and took his first breath near to the lake
amongst the Furies but when he is telling merry tales amongst the Meonion Damosels Ah unheard of sordidnesse of servile souls to make themselves willing slaves to other mens opinions to receive them for inviolable Decrees to engage themselves to seem satisfied and convinced by arguments of such efficacy and so manifestly concludent that they themselves cannot certainly resolve whether they were really writ to that purpose or serve to prove that assumption in hand or the contrary But which is a greater madnesse they are at variance amongst themselves whether the Author himself hath held the affirmative part or the negative What is this but to make an Oracle of a Log and to run to that for answers to fear that to reverence and adore that SIMPL. But in case we should recede from Aristotle who have we to be our Guid in Philosophy Name you some Author SALV We need a Guid in unknown and uncouth wayes but in champion places and open plains the blind only stand in need of a Leader and for such it is better that they stay at home But he that hath eyes in his head and in his mind him should a man choose for his Guid. Yet mistake me not thinking that I speak this for that I am against hearing of Aristotle for on the contrary I commend the reading and diligently studying of him and onely blame the servile giving ones self up a slave unto him so as blindly to subscribe to what ever he delivers and without search of any farther reason thereof to receive the same for an inviolable decree Which is an abuse that carrieth with it another great inconvenience to wit that others will no longer take pains to understand the validity of his Demonstrations And what is more shameful than in the middest of publique disputes whilest one person is treating of demonstrable conclusions to hear another interpose with a passage of Aristotle and not seldome writ to quite another purpose and with that to stop the mouth of his opponent But if you will continue to study in this manner I would have you lay aside the name of Philosophers and call your selves either Historians or Doctors of Memory for it is not fit that those who never philosophate should usurp the honourable title of Philosophers But it is best for us to return to shore and not lanch farther into a boundlesse Gulph out of which we shall not be able to get before night Therefore Simplicius come either with arguments and demonstrations of your own or of Aristotle and bring us no more Texts and naked authorities for our disputes are about the Sensible World and not one of Paper And forasmuch as in our discourses yesterday we retriev'd the Earth from darknesse and exposed it to the open skie shewing that the attempt to enumerate it amongst those which we call Coelestial bodies was not a position so foil'd and vanquish't as that it had no life left in it it followeth next that we proceed to examine what probability there is for holding of it fixt and wholly immoveable scilicet as to its entire Globe what likelihood there is for making it moveable with some motion and of what kind that may be And forasmuch as in this same question I am ambiguous and Simplicius is resolute as likewise Aristotle for the opinion of its immobility he shall one by one produce the arguments in favour of their opinion and I will alledge the answers and reasons on the contrary part and next Sagredus shall tell us his thoughts and to which side he finds himself inclined SAGR. Content provided alwayes that I may reserve the liberty to my self of alledging what pure natural reason shall sometimes dictate to me SALV Nay more it is rhat which I particularly beg of you for amongst the more easie and to so speak material considerations I believe there are but few of them that have been omitted by Writers so that onely some of the more subtle and remote can be desired or wanting and to investigate these what other ingenuity can be more fit than that of the most acute and piercing wit of Sagredus SAGR. I am what ever pleaseth Salviatus but I pray you let us not sally out into another kind of digression complemental for at this time I am a Philosopher and in the Schools not in the Court. SALV Let our contemplation begin therefore with this consideration that whatsoever motion may be ascribed to the Earth it is necessary that it be to us as inhabitants upon it and consequently partakers of the same altogether imperceptible and as if it were not at all so long as we have regard onely to terrestrial things but yet it is on the contrary as necessary that the same motion do seem common to all other bodies and visible objects that being separated from the Earth participate not of the same So that the true method to find whether any kind of motion may be ascribed to the Earth and that found to know what it is is to consider and observe if in bodies separated from the Earth one may discover any appearance of motion which equally suiteth to all the rest for a motion that is onely seen v. gr in the Moon and that hath nothing to do with Venus or Jupiter or any other Stars cannot any way belong to the Earth or to any other save the Moon alone Now there is a most general and grand motion above all others and it is that by which the Sun the Moon the other Planets and the Fixed Stars and in a word the whole Universe the Earth onely excepted appeareth in our thinking to move from the East towards the West in the space of twenty four hours and this as to this first appearance hath no obstacle to hinder it that it may not belong to the Earth alone as well as to all the World besides the Earth excepted for the same aspects will appear in the one position as in the other Hence it is that Aristotle and Ptolomy as having hit upon this consideration in going about to prove the Earth to be immoveable argue not against any other than this Diurnal Motion save onely that Aristotle hinteth something in obscure terms against another Motion ascribed to it by an Ancient of which we shall speak in its place SAGR. I very well perceive the necessity of your illation but I meet with a doubt which I know not how to free my self from and this it is That Copernicus assigning to the Earth another motion beside the Diurnal which according to the rule even now laid down ought to be to us as to appearance imperceptible in the Earth but visible in all the rest of the World me thinks I may necessarily infer either that he hath manifestly erred in assigning the Earth a motion to which there appears not a general correspondence in Heaven or else that if there be such a congruity therein Ptolomy on the other
hand hath been deficient in not confuting this as he hath done the other SALV You have good cause for your doubt and when we come to treat of the other Motion you shall see how far Copernicus excelled Ptolomey in clearness and sublimity of wit in that he saw what the other did not I mean the admirable harmony wherein that Motion agreed with all the other Coelestial Bodies But for the present we will suspend this particular and return to our first consideration touching which I will proceed to propose begining with things more general those reasons which seem to favour the mobility of the Earth and then wait the answers which Simplicius shall make thereto And first if we consider onely the immense magnitude of the Starry Sphere compared to the smalness of the Terrestrial Globe contained therein so many millions of times and moreover weigh the velocity of the motion which must in a day and night make an entire revolution thereof I cannot perswade my self that there is any man who believes it more reasonable and credible that the Coelestial Sphere turneth round and the Terrestrial Globe stands still SAGR. If from the universality of effects which may in nature have dependence upon such like motions there should indifferently follow all the same consequences to an hair aswell in one Hypothesis as in the other yet I for my part as to my first and general apprehension would esteem that he which should hold it more rational to make the whole Universe move and thereby to salve the Earths mobility is more unreasonable than he that being got to the top of your Turret should desire to the end onely that he might behold the City and the Fields about it that the whole Country might turn round that so he might not be put to the trouble to stir his head And yet doubtless the advantages would be many and great which the Copernican Hypothesis is attended with above those of the Ptolomaique which in my opinion resembleth nay surpasseth that other folly so that all this makes me think that far more probable than this But haply Aristotle Ptolomey and Simplicius may find the advantages of their Systeme which they would do well to communicate to us also if any such there be or else declare to me that there neither are or can be any such things SALV For my part as I have not been able as much as I have thought upon it to find any diversity therein so I think I have found that no such diversity can be in them in so much that I esteem it to no purpose to seek farther after it Therefore observe Motion is so far Motion and as Motion operateth by how far it hath relation to things which want Motion but in those things which all equally partake thereof it hath nothing to do and is as if it never were And thus the Merchandises with which a ship is laden so far move by how far leaving London they pass by France Spain Italy and sail to Aleppo which London France Spain c. stand still not moving with the ship but as to the Chests Bales and other Parcels wherewith the ship is stow'd and and laden and in respect of the ship it self the Motion from London to Syria is as much as nothing and nothing-altereth the relation which is between them and this because it is common to all and is participated by all alike and of the Cargo which is in the ship if a Bale were romag'd from a Chest but one inch onely this alone would be in that Cargo a greater Motion in respect of the Chest than the whole Voyage of above three thousand miles made by them as they were stived together SIMPL. This Doctrine is good sound and altogether Peripatetick SALV I hold it to be much more antient and suspect that Aristotle in receiving it from some good School did not fully understand it and that therefore having delivered it with some alteration it hath been an occasion of confusion amongst those who would defend whatever he saith And when he writ that whatsoever moveth doth move upon something immoveable I suppose that he equivocated and meant that whatever moveth moveth in respect to something immoveable which proposition admitteth no doubt and the other many SAGR. Pray you make no digression but proceed in the dissertation you began SALV It being therefore manifest that the motion which is common to many moveables is idle and as it were null as to the relation of those moveables between themselves because that among themselves they have made no change and that it is operative onely in the relation that those moveables have to other things which want that motion among which the habitude is changed and we having divided the Universe into two parts one of which is necessarily moveable and the other immoveable for the obtaining of whatsoever may depend upon or be required from such a motion it may as well be done by making the Earth alone as by making all the rest of the World to move for that the operation of such a motion consists in nothing else save in the relation or habitude which is between the Coelestial Bodies and the Earth the which relation is all that is changed Now if for the obtaining of the same effect ad unguem it be all one whether the Earth alone moveth the rest of the Universe standing still or that the Earth onely standing still the whole Universe moveth with one and the same motion who would believe that Nature which by common consent doth not that by many things which may be done by few hath chosen to make an innumerable number of most vast bodies move and that with an unconceivable velocity to perform that which might be done by the moderate motion of one alone about its own Centre SIMPL. I do not well understand how this grand motion signifieth nothing as to the Sun as to the Moon as to the other Planets and as to the innumerable multitude of fixed stars or why you should say that it is to no purpose for the Sun to pass from one Meridian to another to rise above this Horizon to set beneath that other to make it one while day another while night the like variations are made by the Moon the other Planets and the fixed stars themselves SALV All these alterations instanced by you are nothing save onely in relation to the Earth and that this is true do but imagine the Earth to move and there will be no such thing in the World as the rising or setting of the Sun or Moon nor Horizons nor Meridians nor days nor nights nor in a word will such a motion cause any mutation between the Moon and Sun or any other star whatsoever whether fixed or erratick but all these changes have relation to the Earth which all do yet in sum import no other than as if the Sun should shew it self now to China anon to Persia
in short times make their revolutions about Jupiter Insomuch that it is not to be questioned nay we may hold it for sure and certain that if for example the Moon continuing to be moved by the same movent faculty should retire by little and little in lesser Circles it would acquire a power of abreviating the times of its Periods according to that Pendulum of which in the course of its vibrations we by degrees shortned the cord that is contracted the Semidiameter of the circumferences by it passed Know now that this that I have alledged an example of it in the Moon is seen and verified essentially in fact Let us call to mind that it hath been already concluded by us together with Copernicus That it is not possible to separate the Moon from the Earth about which it without dispute revolveth in a Moneth Let us remember also that the Terrestrial Globe accompanyed alwayes by the Moon goeth along the circumference of the Grand Orb about the Sun in a year in which time the Moon revolveth about the Earth almost thirteen times from which revolution it followeth that the said Moon sometimes is found near the Sun that is when it is between the Sun and the Earth and sometimes much more remote that is when the Earth is situate between the Moon and Sun neer in a word at the time of its conjunction and change remote in its Full and Opposition and the greatest vicinity differ the quantity of the Diameter of the Lunar Orb. Now if it be true that the virtue which moveth the Earth and Moon about the Sun be alwayes maintained in the same vigour and if it be true that the same moveable moved by the same virtue but in circles unequal do in shorter times passe like arches of lesser circles it must needs be granted that the Moon when it is at a lesse distance from the Sun that is in the time of conjunction passeth greater arches of the Grand Orb than when it is at a greater distance that is in its Opppsition and Full. And this Lunar inequality must of necessity be imparted to the Earth also for if we shall suppose a right line produced from the centre of the Sun by the centre of the Terrestrial Globe and prolonged as far as the Orb of the Moon this shall be the semidiameter of the Grand Orb in which the Earth in case it were alone would move uniformly but if in the same semidiameter we should place another body to be carried about placing it one while between the Earth and Sun and another while beyond the Earth at a greater distance from the Sun it is necessary that in this second case the motion common to both according to the circumference of the great Orb by means of the distance of the Moon do prove a little slower than in the other case when the Moon is between the Earth and Sun that is at a lesser distance So that in this businesse the very same happeneth that befals in the time of the clock that lead which is placed one while farther from the centre to make the vibrations of the staffe or ballance lesse frequent and another while nearer to make them thicker representing the Moon Hence it may be manifest that the annual motion of the Earth in the Grand Orb and under the Ecliptick is not uniform and that its irregularity proceedeth from the Moon and hath its Monethly Periods and Returns And because it hath been concluded that the Monethly and Annual Periodick alterations of the ebbings and flowings cannot be deduced from any other cause than from the altered proportion between the annual motion and the additions and substractions of the diurnal conversion and that those alterations might be made two wayes that is by altering the annual motion keeping the quantity of the additions unaltered or by changing of the bignesse of these reteining the uniformity of annual motion We have already found the first of these depending on the irregularity of the annual motion occasioned by the Moon and which hath its Monethly Periods It is therefore necessary that upon that account the ebbings and flowings have a Monethly Period in which they do grow greater and lesser Now you see that the cause of the Monethly Period resideth in the annual motion and withal you see how much the Moon is concerned in this business and how it is therewith interrupted apart without having any thing to do with either with Seas or Waters SAGR. If one that never had seen any kinde of Stairs or Lader were shewed a very high Tower and asked if ever he hoped to climb to the top of it I verily believe that he would answer he did not not conceiving how one should come thither any way except by flying but shewing him a stone of but a foot high and asking him whether he thought he could get to the top of that I am certain that he would answer he could and farther that he would not deny but that it was not onely one but ten twenty and an hundred times easier to climb that But now if he should be shewed the Stairs by means whereof with the facility by him granted it is possible to get thither whither he a little before had affirmed it was impossible to ascend I do think that laughing at himself he would confess his dulness of apprehension Thus Salviatus have you step by step so gently lead me that not without wonder I finde that I am got with small pains to that height which I despaired of arriving at 'T is true that the Stair-case having been dark I did not perceive that I was got nearer to or arrived at the top till that coming into the open Air I discovered a great Sea and spacious Country And as in ascending one step there is no labour so each of your propositions by it self seemed to me so plain that thinking I heard but little or nothing that was new unto me I conceived that my benefit thereby had been little or none at all Whereupon I was the more amazed at the unexpected exit of this discourse that hath guided me to the knowledge of a thing which I held impossible to be demonstrated One doubt onely remains from which I desire to be freed and this it is Whether that if the motion of the Earth together with that of the Moon under the Zodiack are irregular motions those irregularities ought to have been observed and taken notice of by Astronomers which I do not know that they are Therefore I pray you who are better acquainted with these things than I to free me from this doubt and tell me how the â—ase stands SALV You ask a rational question and answering to the Objection I say That although Astronomy in the courses of many ages hath made a great progress in discovering the constitution and motions of the Celestial bodies yet is it not hitherto arrived at that height but that very many things remain undecided and
haply many others also undiscovered It is to be supposed that the first observers of Heaven knew no more but one motion common to all the Stars as is this diurnal one yet I believe that in few dayes they perceived that the Moon was inconstant in keeping company with the other Stars but yet withal that many years past before that they distinguished all the Planets And in particular I conceit that Saturn by its slowness and Mercury by reason of its seldom appearing were the last that were observed to be wandring and errant It is to be thought that many more years run out before the statioâ—s and retrogradations of the three superiour Planets were known as also their approximations and recessions from the Earth necessary occasions of introducing the Eccentrix and Epicicles things unknown even to Aristotle for that he makes no mention thereof Mercury and Venus with their admirable apparitions how long did they keep Astronomers in suspence before that they could resolve not to speak of any other of their qualities upon their situation Insomuch that the very order onely of the Mundane bodies and the integral structure of the parts of the Universe by us known hath been doubted of untill the time of Copernicus who hath at last given us notice of the true constitution and real systeme according to which those parts are disposed so that at length we are certain that Mercury Venus and the other Planets do revolve about the Sun and that the Moon revolveth about the Earth But how each Planet governeth it self in its particular revolution and how precisely the structure of its Orb is framed which is that which is vulgarly called the Theory of the Planets we cannot as yet undoubtedly resolve Mars that hath so much puzled our Modern Astronomers is a proof of this And to the Moon her self there have been assigned several Theories after that the said Copernicus had much altered it from that of Ptolomy And to descend to our particular case that is to say to the apparent motion of the Sun and Moon touching the former there hath been observed a certain great irregularity whereby it passeth the two semicircles of the Ecliptick divided by the points of the Equinoxes in very different times in passing one of which it spendeth about nine dayes more than in passing the other a difference as you see very great and notable But if in passing small arches such for example as are the twelve Signs he maintain a most regular motion or else proceed with paces one while a little more swift and another more slow as it is necessary that it do in case the annual motion belong to the Sun onely in appearance but in reality to the Earth in company with the Moon it is what hath not hitherto been observed nor it may be sought Touching the Moon in the next place whose restitutions have been principally lookt into an account of the Eclipses for which it is sufficient to have an exact knowledge of its motion about the Earth it hath not been likewise with a perfect curiosity inquired what itâ— course is thorow the particular arches of the Zodiack That therefore the Earth and Moon in running through the Zodiack that is round the Grand Orb do somewhat accellerate at the Moons change and retard at its full ought not to be doubted for that the said difference is not manifest which cometh to be unobserved upon two accounts First Because it hath not been lookt for Secondly Because that its possible it may not be very great Nor is there any need that it should be great for the producing the effect that we see in the alteration of the greatness of ebbings and flowings For not onely those alterations but the Tides themselves are but small matters in respect of the grandure of the subjects on which they work albeit that to us and to our littleness they seem great For the addition or subduction of one degree of velocity where there are naturally 700 or 1000 can be called no great alteration either in that which conferreth it or in that Which receiveth it the Water of our Mediterrane carried about by the diurnal revolution maketh about 700 miles an hour which is the motion common to the Earth and to it and therefore not perceptible to us that which we sensibly discern to be made in the streams or currents is not at the rate of full one mile an hour I speak of the main Seas and not of the Straights and this is that which altereth the first naturall and grand motion and this motion is very great in respect of us and of Ships for a Vessel that in a standing Water by the help of Oares can make v. g. three miles an hour in that same current will row twice as far with the stream as against it A notable difference in the motion of the Boat though but very small in the motion of the Sea which is altered but its seven hundredth part The like I say of its rising and falling one two or three feet and scarcely four or five in the utmost bounds of a streight two thousand or more miles long and where there are depths of hundreds of feet this alteration is much less than if in one of the Boats that bring us fresh Water the said Water upon the arrest of the Boat should rise at the Prow the thickness of a leaf I conclude therefore that very small alterations in respect of the immense greatness and extraordinary velocity of the Seas is sufficient to make therein great mutations in relation to our smallness and to our accidents SAGR. I am fully satisfied as to this particular it remains to declare unto us how those additions and substractions derived from the diurnal Vertigo are made one while greater and another while lesser from which alterations you hinted that the annual period of the augmentations and diminutions of the ebbings and flowings did depend SALV I will use my utmost endeavours to render my self intelligible but the difficulty of the accident it self and the great attention of mind requisite for the comprehending of it constrains me to be obscure The unequalities of the additions and substractions that the diurnal motion maketh to or from the annual dependeth upon the inclination of the Axis of the diurnal motion upon the plane of the Grand Orb or if you please of the Ecliptick by means of which inclination the Equinoctial intersecteth the said Ecliptick remaining inclined and oblique upon the same according to the said inclination of Axis And the quantity of the additions importeth as much as the whole diameter of the said Equinoctial the Earths centre being at the same time in the Solstitial points but being out of them it importeth lesse and lesse according as the said centre successively approacheth to the points of the Equinoxes where those additions are lesser than in any other places This is the whole businesse but wrapt up in the