although unjustly be oppressed than those from whence he may receive just incouragement it was no hard matter to find those Complices who for such that is for Damnable and Heretical did from their Pulpits with unwonted confidence preach it with but an unmerciful and less considerate injury not only to this Doctrine and to its followers but to all Mathematicks and Mathematicians together Hereupon assuming greater confidence and vainly hoping that that Seed which first took root in their unsound mindes might spread its branches and ascend towards Heaven they went scattering rumours up and down among the People That it would ere long be condemned by Supreme Authority and knowing that such a Censure would supplant not onely these two Conclusions of the VVorlds Systeme but would make all other Astronomical and Physical Observations that have correspondence and necessary connection therewith to become damnable to facilitate the business they seek all they can to make this opinion at least among the vulgar to seem new and peculiar to my self not owning to know that Nicholas Copernicus was its Authour or rather Restorer and Confirmer a person who was not only a Catholick but a Priest Canonick and so esteemed that there being a Dispute in the Lateran Council under Leo X. touching the correction of the Ecclesiastick Calender he was sent for to Rome from the remotest parts of Germany for to assist in this Reformation which for that time was left imperfect onely because as then the true measure of the Year and Lunar Moneth was not exactly known whereupon it was given him in charge by the Bishop of Sempronia at that time Super-intendent in that Affair to search with reiterated studies and pains for greater light and certainty touching those Coelestial Motions Upon which with a labour truly Atlantick and with his admirable Wit setting himself again to that Study he made such a progress in these Sciences and reduced the knowledge of the Coelestial Motions to such exactnesse that he gained the title of an Excellent Astronomer And according unto his Doctrine not only the Calendar hath been since regulated but the Tables of all the Motions of the Planets have also been calculated and having reduced the said Doctrine into six Books he published them to the World at the instance of the Cardinal of Capua and of the Bishop of Culma And in regard that he had re-assumed this so laborious an enterprize by the order of The Pope he dedicated his Book De Revolutionibus Coelestibus to His Successour namely Paul III. which being then also Printed hath been received by The Holy Church and read and studied by all the World without any the least umbrage of scruple that hath ever been conceived at his Doctrine The which whilst it is now proved by manifest Experiments and necessary Demonstrations to have been well grounded there want not persons that though they never saw that same Book intercept the reward of those many Labours to its Authour by causing him to be censured and pronounced an Heretick and this only to satisfie a particular displeasure conceived without any cause against another man that hath no other interest in Copernicus but only as he is an approver of his Doctrine Now in regard of these false aspersions which they so unjustly seek to throw upon me I have thought it necessary for my justification before the World of whose judgment in matters of Religion and Reputation I ought to make great esteem to discourse concerning those Particulars which these men produce to scandalize and subvert this Opinion and in a word to condemn it not only as false but also as Heretical continually making an Hipocritical Zeal for Religion their shield going about moreover to interest the Sacred Scriptures in the Dispute and to make them in a certain sense Ministers of their deceiptful purposes and farthermore desiring if I mistake not contrary to the intention of them and of the Holy Fathers to extend that I may not say abuse their Authority so as that even in Conclusions meerly Natural and not de Fide they would have us altogether leave Sense and Demonstrative Reasons for some place of Scripture which sometimes under the apparent words may contain a different sense Now I hope to shew with how much greater Piety and Religious Zeal I proceed than they do in that I propose not that the Book of Copernicus is not to be condemned but that it is not to be condemned as they would have it without understanding it hearing it or so much as seeing it and especially he being an Author that never treateth of matters of Religion or Faith nor by Reasons any way depending on the Authority of Sacred Scriptures whereupon he may have erroniously interpreted them but alwaies insists upon Natural Conclusions belonging to the Celestial Motions handled with Astronomical and Geometrical Demonstrations Not that he had not a respect to the places of the Sacred Leaves but because he knew very well that his said Doctrine being demonstrated it could not contradict the Scriptures rightly and according to their true meaning understood And therefore in the end of his Epistle Dedicatory speaking to The Pope he saith thus If there should chance to be any Mataeologists who though ignorant in all the Mathematicks yet pretending a skill in those Learnings should dare upon the authority of some place of Scripture wrested to their purpose to condemn and censure this my Hypothesis I value them not but shall slight their inconsiderate Judgement For it is not unknown that Lactantius otherwise a Famous Author though mean Mathematician writeth very childishly touching the Form of the Earth when he scoffs at those who affirm the Earth to be in Form of a Globe So that it ought not to seem strange to the Ingenious if any such should likewise now deride us The Mathematicks are written for Mathematitians to whom if I deceive not my self these Labours of mine shall seem to add something as also to the Common-weale of the Church whose Government is now in the hands of Your Holiness And of this kinde do these appear to be who indeavour to perswade that Copernicus may be condemned before his Book is read and to make the World believe that it is not onely lawfull but commendable so to do produce certain Authorities of the Scripture of Divines and of Councils which as they are by me had in reverence and held of Supream Authority insomuch that I should esteem it high temerity for any one to contradict them whilst they are used according to the In stitutes of Holy Church so I believe that it is no errour to speak so long as one hath reason to suspect that a person hath a desire for some concern of his own to produce and alledge them to purposes different from those that are in the most Sacred intention of The Holy Church Therefore I not onely protest and my sincerity shall manifest it self that I intend to submit my self freely to renounce
those errors into which through ignorance I may run in this Discourse of matters pertaining to Religion but I farther declare that I desire not in these matters to engage dispute with any one although it should be in points that are disputable for my end tendeth onely to this That if in these considerations besides my own profession amongst the errours that may be in them there be any thing apt to give others an hint of some Notion beneficial to the Holy Church touching the determining about the Copernican Systeme it may be taken and improved as shall seem best to my Superiours If not let my Book be torn and burnt for that I do neither intend nor pretend to gain to my self any fruit from my writings that is not Pious and Catholick And moreover although that many of the things that I observe have been spoken in my own hearing yet I shall freely admit and grant to those that spake them that they never said them if so they please but confess that I might have been mistaken And therefore what I say let it be supposed to be spoken not by them but by those which were of this opinion The motive therefore that they produce to condemn the Opinion of the Mobility of the Earth and Stability of the Sun is that reading in the Sacred Leaves in many places that the Sun moveth that the Earth standeth still and the Scripture not being capable of lying or erring it followeth upon necessary consequence that the Position of those is Erronious and Heretical who maintain that the Sun of it self is immoveable and the Earth moveable Touching this Reason I think it fit in the first place to consider That it is both piously spoken and prudently affirmed That the Sacred Scripture can never lye when ever its true meaning is understood Which I believe none will deny to be many times very abstruce and very different from that which the bare sound of the words signifieth Whence it cometh to pass that if ever any one should constantly confine himself to the naked Grammatical Sence he might erring himself make not only Contradictions and Propositions remote from Truth to appear in the Scriptures but also gross Heresies and Blasphemies For that we should be forced to assign to God feet and hands and eyes yea more corporal and humane affections as of Anger of Repentance of Hatred nay and sometimes the Forgetting of things past and Ignorance of those to come Which Propositions like as so the Holy Ghost affirmeth they were in that manner pronounced by the Sacred Scriptures that they might be accommodated to the Capacity of the Vulgar who are very rude and unlearned so likewise for the sakes of those that deserve to be distinguished from the Vulgar it is necessary that grave and skilful Expositors produce the true senses of them and shew the particular Reasons why they are dictated under such and such words And this is a Doctrine so true and common amongst Divines that it would be superfluous to produce any attestation thereof Hence me thinks I may with much more reason conclude that the same holy Writ when ever it hath had occasion to pronounce any natural Conclusion and especially any of those which are more abstruce and difficult to be understood hath not failed to observe this Rule that so it might not cause confusion in the mindes of those very people and render them the more contumacious against the Doctrines that were more sublimely mysterious For like as we have said and as it plainly appeareth out of the sole respect of condescending to Popular Capacity the Scripture hath not scrupled to shadow over most principal and fundamental Truths attributing even to God himself qualities extreamly remote from and contrary unto his Essence Who would positively affirm that the Scripture laying aside that respect in speaking but occasionally of the Earth of the Water of the Sun or of any other Creature hath chosen to confine it self with all rigour within the bare and narrow literal sense of the words And especially in mentioning of those Creatures things not at all concerning the primary Institution of the same Sacred Volume to wit the Service of God and the salvation of Souls and in things infinitely beyond the apprehension of the Vulgar This therefore being granted methinks that in the Discussion of Natural Problemes we ought not to begin at the authority of places of Scripture but at Sensible Experiments and Necessary Demonstrations For from the Divine Word the Sacred Scripture and Nature did both alike proceed the first as the Holy Ghosts Inspiration the second as the most observant Executrix of Gods Commands And moreover it being convenient in the Scriptures by way of condescension to the understanding of all men to speak many things different in appearance and so far as concernes the naked signification of the words from absolute truth But on the contrary Nature being inexorable and immutable and never passing the bounds of the Laws assigned her as one that nothing careth whether her abstruse reasons and methods of operating be or be not exposed to the Capacity of Men I conceive that that concerning Natural Effects which either Sensible Experience sets before our eyes or Necessary Demonstrations do prove unto us ought not upon any account to be called into question much less condemned upon the testimony of Texts of Scripture which may under their words couch Senses seemingly contrary thereto In regard that every Expression of Scripture is not tied to so strict conditions as every Effect of Nature Nor doth God less admirably discover himself unto us in Nature's Actions than in the Scriptures Sacred Dictions Which peradventure Tertullian intended to express in those words We conclude God is known first by Nature and then again more particularly known by Doctrine by Nature in his Works by Doctrine in his Word preached But I will not hence affirm but that we ought to have an extraordinary esteem for the Places of Sacred Scripture nay being come to a certainty in any Natural Conclusions we ought to make use of them as most apposite helps to the true Exposition of the same Scriptures and to the investigation of those Senses which are necessarily conteined in them as most true and concordant with the Truths demonstrated This maketh me to suppose that the Authority of the Sacred Volumes was intended principally to perswade men to the belief of those Articles and Propositions which by reason they surpass all humane discourse could not by any other Science or by any other means be made credible than by the Mouth of the Holy Spirit it self Besides that even in those Propositions which are not de Fide the Authority of the same Sacred Leaves ought to be preferred to the Authority of all Humane Sciences that are not written in a Demonstrative Method but either with bare Narrations or else with probable Reasons and this I hold to be so far convenient and necessary by how far
the Receptacles of the Imagination of the Memory and of the Understanding So that which represents it self to the meer sight is as nothing in comparison and proportion to the strange Wonders that by help of long and accurate Observations the Wit of Learned Men discovereth in Heaven And this is the substance of what I had to consider touching this particular In the next place as to those that adde That those Natural Propositions of which the Scripture still speaks in one constant tenour and which the Fathers all unanimously receive in the same sense ought to be accepted according to the naked and literal sense of the Words without glosses and interpretations and received and held for most certain and true and that consequently the Mobility of the Sun and Stability of the Earth as being such are de Fide to be held for true and the contrary opinion to be deemed Heretical I shall propose to consideration in the first place That of Natural Propositions some there are of which all humane Science and Discourse can furnish us only with some plausible opinion and probable conjecture rather than with any certain and demonstrative knowledge as for example whether the Stars be animated Others there are of which we have or may confidently believe that we may have by Experiments long Observations and Necessary Demonstrations an undubitable assurance as for instance whether the Earth and Heavens move or not whether the Heavens are Spherical or otherwise As to the first sort I doubt not in the least that if humane Ratiocinations cannot reach them and that consequently there is no Science to be had of them but only an Opinion or Belief we ought fully and absolutely to comply with the meer Verbal Sense of the Scripture But as to the other Positions I should think as hath been said above That we are first to ascertain our selves of the fact it self which will assist us in finding out the true senses of the Scriptures which shall most certainly be found to accord with the fact demonstrated for two truths can never contradict each other And this I take to be a Doctrine orthodox and undoubted for that I finde it written in Saint Augustine who speaking to our point of the Figure of Heaven and what it is to be believed to be in regard that which Astronomers affirm concerning it seemeth to be contrary to the Scripture they holding it to be rotund and the Scripture calling it as it were a Curtain determineth that we are not at all to regard that the Scripture contradicts Astronomers but to believe its Authority if that which they say shall be false and founded only on the conjectures of humane infirmity but if that which which they affirm be proved by indubitable Reasons this Holy Father doth not say that the Astronomers are to be enjoyned that they themselves resolving and renouncing their Demonstrations do declare their Conclusion to be false but saith that it ought to be demonstrated That what is said in Scripture of a Curtain is not contrary to their true Demonstrations These are his words But some object How doth it appear that the saying in our Bibles Who stretcheth out the Heaven as a Curtain maketh not against those who maintain the Heavens to be in figure of a Sphere Let it be so if that be false which they affirme For that is truth which is spoke by Divine Authority rather than that which proceeds from Humane Infirmity But if peradventure they should be able to prove their Position by such Experiments as puts it out of question it is to be proved that vvhat is said in Scripture concerning a Curtain doth in no vvise contradict their manifest Reasons He proceedeth afterwards to admonish us that we ought to be no less careful and observant in reconciling a Text of Scripture with a demonstrated Natural Proposition than wâ—th another Text of Scripture which should sound to a contrary Sense Nay methinks that the circumspection of this Saint is worthy to be admired and imitated who even in obscure Conclusions and of which we may assure our selves that we can have no knowledge or Science by humane demonstration is very reserved in determining what is to be believed as we see by that which he writeth in the end of his second Book de Genesi ad Litteram speaking whether the Stars are to be believed animate Which particular although at present it cannot easily be comprehended yet I suppose in our farther Progress of handling the Scriptures we may meet with some more pertinent places upon which it will be permitted us if not to determin any thing for certain yet to suggest somewhat concerning this matter according to the dictates of Sacred Authority But novv the moderation of pious gravity being alwaies observed vve ought to receive nothing rashly in a doubtful point least perhaps vve reject that out of respect to our Errour vvhich hereafter Truth may discover to be in no vvise repugnant to the Sacred Volumes of the Old and Nevv Testament By this and other places if I deceive not my self the intent of the Holy Fathers appeareth to be That in Natural questions and which are not de Fide it is first to be considered whether they be indubitably demonstrated or by sensible Experiments known or whether such a knowledge and demonstration is to be had which having obtained and it being the gift of God it ought to be applyed to find out the true Sences of the Sacred Pages in those places which in appearance might seem to speak to a contrary meaning Which will unquestionably be pierced into by Prudent Divines together with the occasions that moved the Holy Ghost for our exercise or for some other reason to me unknown to veil it self sometimes under words of different significations As to the other point Of our regarding the Primary Scope of those Sacred Volumes I cannot think that their having spoken alwaies in the same tenour doth any thing at all disturb this Rule For if it hath been the Scope of the Scripture by way of condescention to the capacity of the Vulgar at any time to express a Proposition in words that bear a sense different from the Essence of the said Proposition why might it not have observed the same and for the same respect as often as it had occasion to speak of the same thing Nay I conceive that to have done otherwise would but have encreased the confusion and diminished the credit that these Sacred Records ought to have amongst the Common People Again that touching the Rest and Motion of the Sun and Earth it was necessary for accommodation to Popular Capacity to assert that which the Litteral sense of the Scripture importeth experience plainly proveth For that even to our dayes people far less rude do continue in the same Opinion upon Reasons that if they were well weighed and examined would be found to be extream trivial and upon Experiments either wholly false
doth not oblige us to receive those Precepts which they have not so much as in their intentions enjoyned But if they did reflect and consider thereon they would long since have condemned it if they had judged it erroneous which we do not find that they have done Nay after that some Divines have began to consider it we find that they have not deem'd it erroneous as we read in the Commentaries of Didacus a Stunica upon Job in Cap. 9 v. 6. on the words Qui commovet Terram de loco suo c. Where he at large discourseth upon the Copernican Hypothesis and concludeth That the Mobility of the Earth is not contrary to Scripture Withal I may justly question the truth of that determination namely That the Church enjoyneth us to hold such like Natural Conclusions as matters of Faith onely because they bear the stamp of an unanimous Interpretation of all the Fathers And I do suppose that it may possibly be that those who hold in this manner might possibly have gone about in favour of their own Opinion to have amplified the Decretal of the Councils which I cannot finde in this case to prohibit any other save onely Perverting to Senses contrary to that of Holy Church or of the concurrent consent of Fathers those places and those onely that do pertain either to Faith or Manners or concern our edification in the Doctrine of Christianity And thus speaks the Council of Trent Sess. 4. But the Mobility or Stability of the Earth or of the Sun are not matters of Faith nor contrary to Manners nor is there any one that for the stablishing of this Opinion will pervert places of Scripture in opposition to the Holy Church or to the Fathers Nay Those who have writ of this Doctrine did never make use of Texts of Scripture that they might leave it still in the breasts of Grave and Prudent Divines to interpret the said Places according to their true meaning And how far the Decrees of Councills do comply with the Holy Fathers in these particulars may be sufficiently manifest in that they are so far from enjoyning to receive such like Natural Conclusions for matters of Faith or from censuring the contrary Opinions as erronious that rather respecting the Primitive and primary intention of the Holy Church they do adjudge it unprofitable to be busied in examining the truth thereof Let your Highness be pleased to hear once again what S. Augustine answers to to those Brethren who put the Question Whether it be true that Heaven moveth or standeth still To these I answer That Points of this nature require a curious and profound examination that it may truly appear whether they be true or false a work inconsistent with my leasure to undertake or go thorow with nor is it any way necessary for those whom we desire to inform of things that more nearly concern their own salvation and The Churches Benefit But yet although in Natural Propositions we were to take the resolution of condemning or admitting them from Texts of Scripture unanimously expounded in the same Sense by all the Fathers yet do I not see how this Rule can hold in our Case for that upon the same Places we read several Expositions in the Fathers Dionysius Areopagita saying That the Primum Mobile and not the Sun stand still Saint Augustine is of the same Opinion All the Celestial Bodies were immoveable And with them concurreth Abulensis But which is more amongst the Jewish Authors whom Josephus applauds some have held That The Sun did not really stand still but seemed so to do during the short time in which Israel gave the overthrow to their Enemies So for the Miracle in the time of Hezekiah Paulus Burgensis is of opinion that it was not wrought on the Sun but on the Diall But that in short it is necessary to Glosse and Interpret the words of the Text in Joshua when ever the Worlds Systeme is in dispute I shall shew anon Now finally granting to these Gentlemen more than they demand to wit That we are wholly to acquiesce in the judgment of Judicious Divines and that in regard that such a particular Disquisition is not found to have been made by the Ancient Fathers it may be undertaken by the Sages of our Age who having first heard the Experiments Observations Reasons and Demonstrations of Philosophers and Astronomers on the one side and on the other seeing that the Controversie is about Natural Problems and Necessary Dilemma's and which cannot possibly be otherwise than in one of the two manners in controversie they may with competent certainty determine what Divine Inspirations shall dictate to them But that without minutely examining and discussing all the Reasons on both sides and without ever comming to any certainty of the truth of the Case such a Resolution should be taken Is not to be hoped from those who do not stick to hazzard the Majesty and Dignity of the Sacred Scripture in defending the reputation of their vain Fancies Nor to be feared from those who make it their whole businesse to examine with all intensness what the Grounds of this Doctrine are and that only in an Holy Zeal for Truth the Sacred Scriptures and for the Majesty Dignity and Authority in which every Christian should indeavour to have them maintained Which Dignity who seeth not that it is with greater Zeal desired and procured by those who absolutely submitting themselves to the Holy Church desire not that this or that opinion may be prohibited but onely that such things may be proposed to consideration as may the more ascertain her in the safest choice than by those who being blinded by their particular Interest or stimulated by malitious suggestions preach that she should without more ado thunder out Curses for that she had power so to do Not considering that all that may be done is not alwayes convenient to be done The Holy Fathers of old were not of this opinion but rather knowing of how great prejudice and how much against the primary intent of the Catholick Church it would be to go about from Texts of Scripture to decide Natural Conclusions touching which either Experiments or necessary Demonstrations might in time to come evince the contrary of that which the naked sense of the Words soundeth they have not only proceeded with great circumspection but have left the following Precepts for the instruction of others In points obscure and remote from our Sight if we come to read any thing out of Sacred Writ that with a Salvo to the Faith that we have imbued may correspond with several constructions let us not so farre throw our selves upon any of them with a precipitous obstinacy as that if perhaps the Truth being more diligently search't into it should justly fall to the ground we might fall together with it and so shew that we contend not for the sense of Divine Scriptures but our own in that we
would have that which is our own to be the sense of Scriptures vvhen as vve should rather desire the Scriptures meaning to be ours He goeth on and a little after teacheth us that no Proposition can be against the Faith unlesse first it be demonstrated false saying T is not all the while contrary to Faith until it be disproved by most certain Truth which if it should so be the Holy Scripture affirm'd it not but Humane Ignorance supposed it Whereby we see that the senses which we impose on Texts of Scripture would be false when ever they should disagree with Truths demonstrated And therefore we ought by help of demonstrated Truth to seek the undoubted sense of Scripture and not according to the sound of the words that may seem true to our weaknesse to go about as it were to force Nature and to deny Experiments and Necessary Demonstrations Let Your Highnesse be pleased to observe farther with how great circumspection this Holy Man proceedeth before he affirmeth any Interpretation of Scripture to be sure and in such wise certain as that it need not fear the encounter of any difficulty that may procure it disturbance for not contenting himself that some sense of Scripture agreeth with some Demonstration he subjoynes But if right Reason shall demonstrate this to be true yet is it questionable whether in these words of Sacred Scripture the Pen-man would have this to be understood or somewhat else no lesse true And in case the Context of his Words shall prove that he intended not this yet will not that which he would have to be understood be therefore false but most true aad that which is more profitable to be knovvn But that which increaseth our wonder concerning the circumspection wherewith this Pious Author proceedeth is that not trusting to his observing that both Demonstrative Reasons and the sense that the words of Scripture and the rest of the Context both precedent and subsequent do conspire to prove the same thing he addeth the following words But if the Context do not hold forth any thing that may disprove this to be the Authors Sense it yet remains to enquire Whether the other may not be intended also And not yet resolving to accept of one Sense or reject another but thinking that he could never use sufficient caution he proceedeth But if so be we finde that the other may be also meant it vvill be doubted which of them he would have to stand or which in probability he may be thought to aim at if the true circumstances on both sides be weighed And lastly intending to render a Reason of this his Rule by shewing us to what perils those men expose the Scriptures and the Church who more respecting the support of their own errours than the Scriptures Dignity would stretch its Authority beyond the Bounds which it prescribeth to it self he subjoyns the ensuing words which of themselves alone might suffice to repress and moderate the excessive liberty which some think that they may assume to themselves For it many times falls out that a Christian may not so fully understand a Point concerning the Earth Heaven and the rest of this Worlds Elements the Motion Conversion Magnitude and Distances of the Stars the certain defects of the Sun and Moon the Revolutions of Years and Times the Nature of Animals Fruits Stones and other things of like nature as to defend the same by right Reason or make it out by Experiments But it s too great an absurdity yea most pernicious and chiefly to be avoided to let an Infidel finde a Christian so stupid that he should argue these matters as if they were according to Christian Doctrine and make him as the Proverb saith scarce able to contain his laughter seeing him so far from the Mark. Nor is the matter so much that one in an errour should be laught at but that our Authors should be thought by them that are without to be of the same Opinion and to the great prejudice of those whose salvation we wait for sensured and rejected as unlearned For when they shal confute any one of the Christians in that matter vvhich they themselvs thorovvly understand and shall thereupon express their light esteem of our Books hovv shall these Volumes be believed touching the Resurrection of the Dead the Hope of eternal Life and the Kingdom of Heaven vvhen as to these Points vvhich admit of present Demonstration or undoubted Reasons they conceive them to be falsly vvritten And how much the truly Wise and Prudent Fathers are displeased with these men who in defence of Propositions which they do not understand do apply and in a certain sense pawn Texts of Scripture and afterwards go on to encrease their first Errour by producing other places less understood than the former The same Saint declareth in the expressions following What trouble and sorrow weak undertakers bring upon their knowing Brethren is not to be expressed since vvhen they begin to be told and convinced of their false and unsound Opinion by those vvho have no respect for the Authority of our Scriptures in defence of vvhat through a fond Temerity and most manifest falsity they have urged they fall to citing the said Sacred Books for proof of it or else repeat many vvords by heart out of them vvhich they conceive to make for their purpose not knovving either what they say or vvhereof they affirm In the number of these we may as I conceive account those who being either unwilling or unable to understand the Demonstrations and Experiments wherewith the Author and followers of this Opinion do confirm it run upon all occasions to the Scriptures not considering that the more they cite them and the more they persist in affirming that they are very clear and do admit no other senses save those which they force upon them the greater injury they do to the Dignity of them if we allowed that their judgments were of any great Authority in case that the Truth coming to be manifestly known to the contrary should occasion any confusion at least to those who are separated from the Holy Church of whom yet she is very solicitous and like a tender Mother desirous to recover them again into her Lap Your Highness therefore may see how praeposterously those Persons proceed who in Natural Disputations do range Texts of Scripture in the Front for their Arguments and such Texts too many times as are but superficially understood by them But if these men do verily think absolutely believe that they have the true sence of Such a particular place of Scripture it must needs follow of consequence that they do likewise hold for certain that they have found the absolute truth of that Natural Conclusion which they intend to dispute And that withal they do know that they have a great advantage of their Adversary whose Lot it is to defend the part that is false in regard that he
think a greater part should rather be imployed than a lesser 105 PRINCIPLES By denying Principles in Sciences any Paradox may be maintained 28 Contrary Principles cannot naturally reside in the same Subject 211 PROJECT c. The Project according to Aristotle is not moved by virtue impressed but by the Medium 130 Operation of the Medium in continuing the Motion of the Project 131 Many Experiments and Reasons against the Motions of Projects assigned by Aristotle 132 The Medium doth impede and not conferre the Motion of Projects 134 An admirable accident in the Motion of Projects 135 Sundry curious Problems touching the Motion of Projects 137 Projects continue their Motion by a Right Line that follows the direction of the Motion made together with the Projicient whilst they were conjoyned therewith 154 The Motion impressed by the Projicient is onely in a Right Line 170 The Project moveth by the Tangent of the Circle of the Motion preceeding in the instant of Seperation 172 A Grave Project assoon as it is seperated from the Projicient beginneth to decline 173 The Cause of the Projection encreaseth not according to the Proportion of Velocity encreased by making the Wheel bigger 189 The Virtue which carrieth Grave Projects upwards is no lesse Natural to them than the Gravity which moveth them downwards 211 PTOLOMY c. Inconveniences that are in the System of Ptolomy 309 Ptolomies System full of defects 476 The Learned both of elder and later times dissatisfied with the Ptolomaick System 477 PYTHAGORAS c. Pythagorick Mistery of Numbers fabulous 3 Pythagoras offered an Hecatombe for a Geometrical Demonstration which he found 38 Pythagoras and many other Ancients enumerated that held the Earths Mobility 437 468 R RAYS Shining Objects seem fringed and environed with adventitious Rays 304 REST. Rest. Vide Motion Rest the Infinite degree of Tardity 11 RETROGRADATIONS Retrogradations more frequent in Saturn lesse frequent in Jupiter and yet lesse in Mars and why 311 The Retrogradations of Venus and Mercury demonstrated by Apollonius and Copernicus 311 S SATURN Saturn for its slownesse and Mercury for its late appearing were amongst those that were last observed 416 SCARCITY Scarcity and Plenty enhanse and debase the price of all things 43 SCHEINER Christopher Scheiner the Jesuit his Book of Conclusions confuted 78 195 seq 323 A Canon Bullet would spend more than six dayes in falling from the Concave of the Moon to the Center of the Earth according to Scheiner 195 Christopher Scheiner his Book entituled Apelles post Tabulam censured and disproved 313 The Objections of Scheiner by way of Interrogation 336 Answers to the Interrogations of Scheiner 336 Questions put to Scheiner by which the weaknesse of his is made appear 336 SCIENCES In Natural Sciences the Art of Oratory is of no use 40 In Natural Sciences it is not necessary to seek Mathematical evidence 206 SCRIPTURE c. The Caution we are to use in determining the Sense of Scripture in difficult points of Phylosophy 427 Scripture studiously condescendeth to the apprehension of the Vulgar 432 In dicussing of Natural Questions we ought not to begin at Scripture but at Sensible Experiments and Necessary Demonstrations 433 The intent of Scripture is by its Authority to recommend those Truths to our beliefe which being un-intelligible could no other wayes be rendered credible 434 Scripture Authority to be preferred even in Natural Controversies to such Sciences as are not confined to a Demonstrative Method 434 The Pen-men of Scripture though read in Astronomy intentionally forbear to teach us any thing of the Nature of the Stars 435 The Spirit had no intent at the Writing of the Scripture to teach us whether the Earth moveth or standeth still as nothing concerning our Salvation 436 Inconveniencies that arise from licentious usurping of Scripture to stuffe out Books that treat of Nat. Arguments 438 The Literal Sense of Scripture joyned with the universal consent of the Fathers is to be received without farther dispute 444 A Text of Scripture ought no lesse diligently to be reconciled with a Demonstrated Proposition in Philosophy than with another Text of Scripture sounding to a contrary Sense 446 Demonstrated Truth ought to assist the Commentator in finding the true Sense of Scripture 446 It was necessary by way of condescension to Vulgar Capacities that the Scripture should speak of the Rest and Motion of the Sun and Earth in the same manner that it doth 447 Not onely the Incapacity of the Vulgar but the Current Opinion of those times made the Sacred Writers of the Scripture to accommodate themselves to Popular Esteem more than Truth 447 The Scripture had much more reason to affirm the Sun Moveable and the Earth Immoveable than otherwise 448 Circumspection of the Fathers about imposing positive Senses on Doubtful Texts of Scripture 451 T is Cowardice makes the Anti-Copernican fly to Scripture Authorities thinking thereby to affright their Adversaries 455 Scripture speaks in Vulgar and Common Points after the manner of Men. 462 The intent of Scripture is to be observed in Places that seem to affirme the Earths Stability 464 Scripture Authorities that seem to affirm the Motion of the Sun and Stability of the Earth divided into six Classes 478 Six Maximes to be observed in Expounding Dark Texts of Scripture 481 Scripture Texts speaking of things inconvenient to be understood in their Literal Sense are to be interpreted one of the four wayes named 81 Why the Sacred Scripture accommodates it self to the Sense of the Vulgar 487 SEA The Seas Surface would shew at a distance more obscure than the Land 49 The Seas Reflection of Light much weaker than that of the Earth 81 The Isles are tokens of the unevennesse of the Bottoms of Seas 383 SELEUCUS Opinion of Seleucus the Mathematician censured 422 SENSE He who denieth Sense deserves to be deprived of it 21 Sense sheweth that things Grave move ad Medium and the Light to the Concave 21 It is not probable that God who gave us our Senses would have us lay them aside and look for other Proofs for such Natural Points as Sense sets before our Eyes 434 Sense and Reason lesse certain than Faith 475 SILVER Silver burnished appears much more obscure than the unburnished and why 64 SIMPLICIUS Simplicius his Declamation 43 SOCRATES The Answer of the Oracle true in judging Socrates the Wisest of his time 85 SORITES The Forked Sylogisme called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 29 SPEAKING We cannot abstract our manner of Speaking from our Sense of Seeing 461 SPHERE The Motion of 24 hours ascribed to the Highest Sphere disorders the Period of the Inferiour 102 The Sphere although Material toucheth the Material Plane but in one point onely 182 The Definition of the Sphere 182 A Demonstration that the Sphere toucheth the Plane but in one point 183 Why the Sphere in abstract toucheth the Plane onely in one point and not the Material in Concrete 184 Contact in a Single Point is not
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
inveigh and of whom in particular S. Hierom writeth This Scilicet the Sacred Scripture the talking old woman the doting old man the talkative Sophister all venture upon lacerate teach and that before they have learnt it Others induced by Pride diving into hard words Philosophate amongst Women touching the Holy Scriptures Others Oh shameful Learn of Women what they teach to Men and as if this were nothing in a certain facility of words I may say of confidence expound to others what they understand not themselves I forbear to speak of those of my own Profession who if after Humane Learning they chance to attain to the Holy Scriptures and tickle the ears of the people with affected and Studied expressions they affirm that all they say is to be entertained as the Law of God and not stooping to learn what the Prophets and Apostles held they force incongruous testimonies to their own Sense As if it were the genuine and not corrupt way of teaching to deprave Sentences and Wrest the Scripture according to their own singular and contradictory humour I will not rank among these same secular Writers any Theologists whom I repute to be men of profound Learning and sober Manners and therefore hold them in great esteem and veneration Yet I cannot deny but that I have a certain scruple in my mind and consequently am desirous to have it removed whilst I hear that they pretend to a power of constraining others by Authority of the Scriptures to follow that opinion in Natural Disputations which they think most agreeth with the Texts of that Holding withall that they are not bound to answer the Reasons and Experiments on the contrary In Explication and Confirmation of which their judgement they say That Theologie being the Queen of all the Sciences she ought not upon any account to stoop to accomodate her self to the Positions of the rest less worthy and inferior to her But that they ought to refer themselves to her as to their Supream Emperess and change and alter their Conclusions according to Theological Statutes and Decrees And they further add That if in the inferior Science there should be any Conclusion certain by vertue of Demonstrations or experiments to which there is found in Scripture another Conclusion repugnant the very Professors of that Science ought of themselves to resolve their Demonstrations and discover the falacies of their own Experiments without repairing to Theologers and Textuaries it not suiting as hath been said with the dignity of Theologie to stoop to the investigation of the falacies of the inferior Sciences But it sufficeth her to determine the truth of the Conclusion with her absolute Authority and by her infallibility And then the Natural Conclusions in which they say that we ought to bide by the meer Authority of the Scripture without glossing or expounding it to Senses different from the Words they affirm to be Those of which the Scripture speaketh alwaies in the same manner and the Holy Fathers all receive and expound to the same Sense Now as to these Determinations I have had occasion to consider some particulars which I will purpose for that I was made cautious thereof by those who understand more than I in these businesses and to whose judgements I alwaies submit my self And first I could say that there might possibly a certain kinde of equivocation interpose in that they do not distinguish the preheminences whereby Sacred Theologie meriteth the Title of Queen For it might be called so either because that that which is taught by all the other Sciences is found to be comprized and demonstrated in it but with more excellent means and with more sublime Learning in like manner as for example The Rules of measuring of Land of Accountantship are much more excellently contained in the Arithmatick and Geometry of Euclid than in the Practises of Surveyours and Accomptants Or because the Subject about which Theologie is conversant excelleth in Dignity all the other Subjects that are the Matters of other Sciences As also because its Documents are divulged by nobler waies That the Title and Authority of Queen belongeth to Theologie in the first Sense I think that no Theologers will affirm that have but any in-sight into the other Sciences of which there are none as I believe that will say that Geometry Astronomy Musick and Medicine are much more excellently and exactly contained in the Sacred Volumes than in the Books of Archimedes in Ptolomy in Boetius and in Galen Therefore it is probable that the Regal Preheminence is given her upon the second account namely By reason of the Subject and the admirable communicating of the Divine Revelations in those Conclusions which by other means could not be conceived by men and which chiefly concern the acquist of eternal Beatitude Now if Theologie being conversant about the loftiest Divine Contemplation and residing for Dignity in the Regal Throne of the Sciences whereby she becometh of highest Authority descendeth not to the more mean and humble Speculations of the inferior Sciences Nay as hath been declared above hath no regard to them as not concerning Beatitude the Professors thereof ought not to arrogate to themselves the Authority to determin of Controversies in those Professions which have been neither practised nor studied by them For this would be as if an Absolute Prince knowing that he might freely command and cause himself to be obeyed should being neither Phisitian nor Architect undertake to administer Medicines and erect Buildings after his own fashion to the great endangering af the lives of the poor Patients and to the manifest destruction of the Edifices Again to command the very Professors of Astronomy that they of themselves see to the confuting of their own Observations and Demonstrations as those that can be no other but Falacies and Sophismes is to enjoyn a thing beyond all possibility of doing For it is not onely to command them that they do not see that which they see and that they do not understand that which they understand but that in seeking they finde the contrary of that which they happen to meet with Therefore before that this is to be done it would be necessary that they were shewed the way how to make the Powers of the Soul to command one another and the inferior the Superior so that the imagination and will might and should believe contrary to what the Intellect understands I still mean in Propositions purely Natural and which are not de Fide and not in the Supernatural which are de Fide I would entreat these Wise and Prudent Fathers that they would withal diligence consider the difference that is between Opinable and Demonstrative Doctrines To the end that well weighing in their minds with what force Necessary Illations oblige they might the better ascertain themselves that it is not in the Power of the Professors of Demonstrative Sciences to change their Opinions at pleasure and apply themselves one while to one side and another
of Venerable Antiquity and proved many of their greattest and weightiest Opinions to be vain and false The Doctrine of the Antipodes by many of the Antients of approved Wisdome and Learning was held a Paradox no less absurd than this Our Opinion of the Earths Motion may seem to be as likewise that of the Habitablenesse of the Torrid Zone Of these Opinions the first was accounted unpossible by many but the latter was absolutely denyed by the unanimous consent of all But later Authors to the great felicity and perpetual Glory of their Age have not so much by Authority as by accurate diligence and indefatigable study to finde out the truth proved them both to be undoubtedly true Thus I affirm that the Antients were deceived and that in too lightly challenging Credid and Authority for their Inventions they discovered too much folly Here for brevities sake I pass by many Dreams lately detected both of Aristotle and other of the antient Philosophers who in all likelihood if they had dived into the Observations of Modern Writers and understood their Reasons would by changing their judgements have given them the precedency and would have subscribed to their manifest Truth Hereby we see that we are not to have so high a respect for the Aâ—tiens that whatever they assert should be taken upon trust and that Faith should be given to their sayings as if they were Oracles and Truths sent down from Heaven But yet which indeed is chiefly to be regarded in these matters if any thing be found out that is repugnant to Divine Authority or to the Sacred Leaves that were dictated by the Holy Ghost and by His Inspiration expounded by the Holy Doctors of the Church in this case not onely Humane reason but even Sense it self is to submitt which though by all manner of weighty Conditions and circumstances it should hold forth any thing contrary to Divine Authority which indeed is so plain that there is no way left to evade the right understanding of it yet is it to be rejected and we must conclude our selves deceived by it and believe that that is not true which Sense and Reason represents unto us For however we judge of things we have both in this and all other cases a more certain knowledge which proceeds from Divine Faith as S. Peter hath most excellently exprest it Who though with his Senses he saw and perceived the Glory of our Lord in his Transfiguration and heard his words manifesting his great Power yet nevertheless all these things compared with the Light of Faith he adds We have also a more sure word of Prophecy c. Wherefore since this Opinion of Pythagoras and Copernicus hath entred upon the Stage of the World in so strange a Dress and at the first appearance besides the rest doth seem to oppose sundry Authorities of Sacred Scripture it hath this being granted been justly rejected of all men as a meer absurdity But yet because the common Systeme of the World devised by Ptolomy hath hitherto satisfied none of the Learned hereupon a suspition is risen up amongst all even Ptolemy's followers themselves that there must be some other Systeme which is more true than this of Ptolemy For although the Phaenomena of Celestial Bodys may seem to be generally resolved by this Hypothesis yet they are found to be involved with many difficulties and referred to many devices as namely of Orbes of sundry Forms and Figures Epicicles Equations Differences Excentricks and innumerable such like fancies and Chymaera's which savour of the Ens Rationis of Logicians rather than of any Realem Essentiam Of which kinde is that of the Rapid Motion than which I finde not any thing that can be more weakly grounded and more easily controverted and disproved And such is that conceit of the Heaven void of Stars moving the inferior Heavens or Orbes All which are introduced upon occasion of the variety of the Motions of Celestial Bodyes which seemed impossible by any other way to be reduced to any certain and determinate Rule So that the Assertors of that common Opinion freely confess that in describing the Worlds Systeme they cannot as yet discover or teach the true Hypothesis thereof But that their endeavours are onely to finde out amongst many things what is most agreeable with truth and may upon better and more accomodate Reasons answer the Celestial Phaenomena Since that the Telescope an Optick Invention hath been found out by help of which many remarkable things in the Heavens most worthy to be known and till then unthought of were discovered by manifest sensation as for instance That the Moon is Mountainous Venus and Saturn Tricorporeal and Jupiter Quadricorporeal Likewise that in the Via Lactea in the Pleiades and in the Stars called Nobulosae there are many Stars and those of the greatest Magnitude which are by turns adjacent to one another and in the end it hath discovered to us new fixed Stars new planets and new Worlds And by this same Instrument it appears very probable that Venus and Mercury do not move properly about the Earth but rather about the Sun and that the Moon alone moveth about the Earth What therefore can be inferred from hence but that the Sun doth stand immovable in the Centre and that the Earth with the other Celestial Orbes is circumvolved about it Wherefore by this and many other Reasons it appears That the Opinion of Pythagoras and Copernicus doth not disagree with Astronomical and Cosmographical Principles yea that it carryeth with it a great likelihood and probability of Truth Whereas amongst the so many several Opinions that deviate from the common Systeme and devise others such as were those of Plato Calippus Eudoxus and since them of Averroe Cardanus Fracastorius and others both Antient and Modern there is not one found that is more facile more regularly ahd determinately accommodated to the Phaenomena and Motions of the Heavens without Epicycles Excentrix Homocentricks Deferents and the supputation of the Rapid Motion And this Hypothesis hath been asserted for true not onely by Pythagoras and after him by Copernicus but by many famous men as namely Heraclitus and Ecphantus Pythagoreans all the Disciples of that Sect Miceta of Syracuse Martianus Capella and many more Amongst whom those as we have said that have attempted the finding out of New Systemes for they refused both this of Pythagoras and that of Ptolemy are numberless who yet notwithstanding allowed this Opinion of Pythagoras to carry with it much probability and indirectly confirmed it inasmuch as that they rejected the common one as imperfect defective and attended with many contradictions and difficulties Amongst these may be numbered Father Clavius a most learned Jesuite who although he refutes the Systeme of Pythagoras yet acknowledgeth the Levity of the common Systeme and he ingeniously confesseth that for the removal of difficulties in which the common Systeme will not serve the turn Astronomers are forced to enquire
Magnitude such as Canopus otherwise called Arcanar in the end of a River or the Little Dog in the mouth of the Great Dog or the Foot of Orion called Rigel or his Right shoulder or any other of that Magnitude Therefore the two great Lights are to be understood in respect of us and according to vulgar estimation and not according to the true and reall existence of such Bodies Secondly in the specification of the Proposition it is said The greater Light to rule the Day hereby denoting the Sun in which the verbal sense of Scripture agreeth with the Truth of the Thing For that the Sun is the Greatest of all Luminaries and Globes But that which followeth immediately after And the lesser Light to rule the Night meaning the Moon cannot be taken in the true and real sense of the words For the Moon is not the lesser Light but Mercury which is not only much lesser than the Moon but also than any other Star And if again it be said That the Holy Text doth not speak of the Stars but onely of the Luminaries for that presently after they are mentioned apart And the Stars and that what we say is true touching the comparison of the Stars amongst themselves but not in respect of the Luminaries namely the Sun and Moon This reply doth discover a man to be utterly ignorant in these Studies and such who having not the least smattering in them doth conceive an absurd and erroneous Opinion of the Coelestial Bodies For the Moon and Sun considered in themselves and as they appear to us if they should be a far greater distance from us than indeed they are would be no other nor would appear to us otherwise than Stars as the rest do in the Firmament But Great Luminaries they neither are nor seem to be save only in respect of us And so on the other side the Stars as to themselves are no other than so many Suns and so many Moons yet are so far remote from us that by reason of their distance they appear thus small and dim of light as we behold them For the greater and lesser distance of heavenly Bodies caeteris paribus doth augment and diminish their appearance both as to Magnitude and Light And therefore the words which follow in that place of Genesis And the Stars as distinguishing the Stars from the Sun and Moon are to be taken in no other acceptation than that which we have spoken of namely according to the sense of the Vulgar and the common manner of speech For indeed according to the truth of the matter all Coelestial Bodies being shining Globes are of a vast bigness to which if we should be so neer as we are to the Moon they would seem to us of as great yea a greater magnitude than the Moon As likewise on the contrary if we were as far distant from the Sun and Moon as we are from them both Moon and Sun would shew but as stars to us And yet the splendor of the Sun would doubtless be greater intensivè than that of any other star For although it should be granted that some stars as those of the Fixed that twinkle do shine of themselves aud by their own nature as the Sun that derives not its light from others which yet remains undecided and doubtful and borrow not their light from the Sun Nevertheless since the brightness of none of the stars may be compared with the Suns splendour which was created by God first and before all other Luminaries in the highest kind of Light it would therefore notwithstanding follow that none of those stars although placed in the same proximity to us with the Sun and therefore appearing to us of the same Magnitude as the Sun can bestow upon us so much Light as we receive from the Sun As on the contrary the Sun at the same remotenesse from us as they are would indeed as to its Magnitude appear to us as one of those stars but of a splendour much more intense than that of theirs So that now the Earth is nothing else but another Moon or star and so would it appear to us if we should behold it from a convenient distance on high And in it might be observed in that variety of Light and Darkness which the Sun produceth in it by making Day and Night the same difference of Aspects that are seen in the Moon and such as are observed in tricorporate Venus in like manner also 't is very probable that the same might be discerned in other Planets which shine by no light of their own but by one borrowed from the Sun What ever therefore may touching these matters be delivered in the sacred Leaves or the common speech of men dissenting from the real truth it ought as we have said before absolutely to be received and understood secundum vulgi sententiam communem loquendi concipiendi stylum And so to return to our purpose if all this considered the Pythagorian opinion be true it will be easie according to the same Rule to reconcile the authority of sacred Scriptures with it however they seem to oppose it and in particular those of the first and second Classis scilicet by my first Maxime For that in those places the holy Records speak according to our manner of understanding and according to that which appeareth in respect of us For thus it is with those Bodies in comparison of us and as they are described by the vulgar and commune way of humane Discourse So that the Earth appears as if it were standing still and immoveable and the Sun as if it were circumambient about her And so the Holy Scripture is used in the Commune and Vulgar way of speaking because in respect of our sight the Earth seems rather to stand fixed in the Centre and the Sun to circumvolve about it than otherwise as it happens to those that are putting off from the Banks of a River to whom the shore seems to move backwards and go from them but they do not perceive which yet is the truth that they themselves go forwards Which fallacy of our sight is noted and the Reason thereof assigned by the Opticks upon wich as being strange to and besides my purpose I will not stay and on this account is Aeneas brought in by Virgil saying Provehimur portu terraeque urbesque recedunt But it will not be amiss to consider why the sacred Scripture doth so studiously comply with the opinions of the Vulgar and why it doth not rather accurately instruct men in the truth of the matters and the secrets of Nature The Reason is first the benignity of Divine Wisdome whereby it sweetly accomodates it self to all things in proportion to their Capacity and Nature Whence in Natural Sciences it useth natural and necessary causes but in Liberal Arts it worketh liberally upon Generous Persons after a sublime and lofty manner upon the Common People familiarly and humbly upon the Skilful
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
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
from whence is taken the invention of the Crystals and see here lastly the sight fortified by the passage of the rays through a diaphanous but more dense and obscure medium SAGR. This is a way to comprehend all things knowable much like to that wherewith a piece of marble conteineth in it one yea a thousand very beautiful Statua's but the difficulty lieth in being able to discover them or we may say that it is like to the prophesies of Abbot Joachim or the answers of the Heathen Oracles which are not to be understood till after the things fore-told are come to passe SALV And why do you not adde the predictions of the Genethliacks which are with like cleernesse seen after the event in their Horoscopes or if you will Configurations of the Heavens SAGR. In this manner the Chymists find being led by their melancholly humour that all the sublimest wits of the World have writ of nothing else in reality than of the way to make Gold but that they might transmit the secret to posterity without discovering it to the vulgar they contrived some one way and some another how to conceal the same under several maskes and it would make one merry to hear their comments upon the ancient Poets finding out the important misteries which lie hid under their Fables and the signification of the Loves of the Moon and her descending to the Earth for Endimion her displeasure against Acteon and what was meant by Jupiters turning himself into a showre of Gold and into flames of fire and what great secrets of Art are conteined in that Mercury the Interpreter in those thefts of Pluto and in those Branches of Gold SIMPL. I believe and in part know that there want not in the World very extravagant heads the vanities of whom ought not to redound to the prejudice of Aristotle of whom my thinks you speak sometimes with too little respect and the onely antiquity and bare name that he hath acquired in the opinions of so many famous men should suffice to render him honourable with all that professe themselves learned SALV You state not the matter rightly Simplicius There are some of his followers that fear before they are in danger who give us occasion or to say better would give us cause to esteem him lesse should we consent to applaud their Capricio's And you pray you tell me are you for your part so simple as not to know that had Aristotle been present to have heard the Doctor that would have made him Author of the Telescope he would have been much more displeased with him than with those who laught at the Doctor and his Comments Do you question whether Aristotle had he but seen the novelties discovered in Heaven would not have changed his opinion amended his Books and embraced the more sensible Doctrine rejecting those silly Gulls which too scrupulously go about to defend what ever he hath said not considering that if Aristotle were such a one as they fancy him to themselves he would be a man of an untractable wit an obstinate mind a barbarous soul a stubborn will that accounting all men else but as silly sheep would have his Oracles preferred before the Senses Experience and Nature her self They are the Sectators of Aristotle that have given him this Authority and not he that hath usurped or taken it upon him and because it is more easie for a man to sculk under anothers shield than to shew himself openly they tremble and are affraid to stir one step from him and rather than they will admit some alterations in the Heaven of Aristotle they will impertinently deny those they behold in the Heaven of Nature SAGR. These kind of Drolleries put me in mind of that Statuary which having reduced a great piece of Marble to the Image of an Hercules or a thundring Jupiter I know not whether and given it with admirable Art such a vivacity and threatning fury that it moved terror in as many as beheld it he himself began also to be affraid thereof though all its sprightfulnesse and life was his own workmanship and his affrightment was such that he had no longer the courage to affront it with his Chizzels and Mallet SALV I have many times wondered how these nice maintainers of what ever fell from Aristotle are not aware how great a prejudice they are to his reputation and credit and how that the more they go about to encrease his Authority the more they diminish it for whilest I see them obstinate in their attempts to maintain those Propositions which I palpably discover to be manifestly false and in their desires to perswade me that so to do is the part of a Philosopher and that Aristotle himself would do the same it much abates in me of the opinion that he hath rightly philosophated about other conclusions to me more abstruse for if I could see them concede and change opinion in a manifest truth I would believe that in those in which they should persist they may have some solid demonstrations to me unknown and unheard of SAGR. Or when they should be made to see that they have hazarded too much of their own and Aristotle's repuatation in confessing that they had not understood this or that conclusion found out by some other man would it not be a less evil for them to seek for it amongst his Texts by laying many of them together according to the art intimated to us by Simplicius for if his works contain all things knowable it must follow also that they may be therein discovered SALV Good Sagredus make no jest of this advice which me thinks you rehearse in too Ironical a way for it is not long since that a very eminent Philosopher having composed a Book de animà wherein citing the opinion of Aristotle about its being or not being immortal he alledged many Texts not any of those heretofore quoted by Alexander ab Alexandro for in those he said that Aristotle had not so much as treated of that matter much less determined any thing pertaining to the same but others by himself found out in other more abstruse places which tended to an erroneous sense and being advised that he would find it an hard matter to get a Licence from the Inquisitors he writ back unto his friend that he would notwithstanding with all expedition procure the same for that if no other obstacle should interpose he would not much scruple to change the Doctrine of Aristotle and with other expositions and other Texts to maintain the contrary opinion which yet should be also agreeable to the sense of Aristotle SAGR. Oh most profound Doctor this that can command me that I stir not a step from Aristotle but will himself lead him by the nose and make him speak as he pleaseth See how much it importeth to learn to take Time by the Fore-top Nor is it seasonable to have to do with Hercules whil'st he is enraged and
the undeceiving of this Philosopher that I could advise him that some time or other going by water he would carry along with him a Vessel of reasonable depth full of water and prepare a ball of wax or other matter that would descend very slowly to the bottome so that in a minute of an hour it would scarce sink a yard and that rowing the boat as fast as could be so that in a minute of an hour it should run above an hundred yards he would let the ball submerge into the water freely descend diligently observe its motion If he would but do thus he should see first that it would go in a direct line towards that point of the bottom of the vessel whither it would tend if the boat should stand still to his eye and in relation to the vessel that motion would appear most straight and perpendicular and yet he could not say but that it would be composed of the right motion downwards and of the circular about the element of water And if these things befall in matters not natural and in things that we may experiment in their state of rest then again in the contrary state of motion and yet as to appearance no diversity at all is discovered that they seem to deceive our sense what can we distinguish touching the Earth which hath been perpetually in the same constitution as to motion and rest And in what time can we experiment whether any difference is discernable amongst these accidents of local motion in its diverse states of motion and rest if it eternally indureth in but one onely of them SAGR. These Discourses have somewhat whetted my stomack which those fishes and snails had in part nauseated and the former made me call to minde the correction of an errour that hath so much appearance of truth that I know not whether one of a thousand would refuse to admit it as unquestionable And it was this that sailing into Syria and carrying with me a very good Telescope that had been bestowed on me by our Common Friend who not many dayes before had invented I proposed to the Mariners that it would be of great benefit in Navigation to make use of it upon the round top of a ship to discover and kenne Vessels afar off The benefit was approved but there was objected the difficulty of using it by reason of the Ships continual fluctuation and especially on the round top where the agitation is so much greater and that it would be better for any one that would make use thereof to stand at the Partners upon the upper Deck where the tossing is lesse than in any other place of the Ship I for I will not conceal my errour concurred in the same opinion and for that time said no more nor can I tell you by what hints I was moved to return to ruminate with my self upon this businesse and in the end came to discover my simplicity although excusable in admitting that for true which is most false false I say that the great agitation of the basket or round top in comparison of the small one below at the partners of the Mast should render the use of the Telescope more difficult in finding out the object SALV I should have accompanied the Mariners and your self at the beginning SIMP And so should I have done and still do nor can I believe if I should think of it an hundred years that I could understand it otherwise SAGR. I may then it seems for once prove a Master to you both And because the proceeding by interrogatories doth in my opinion much dilucidate things besides the pleasure which it affords of confounding our companion forcing from him that which he thought he knew not I will make use of that artifice And first I suppose that the Ship Gally or other Vessel which we would discover is a great way off that is four six ten or twenty miles for that to kenne those neer at hand there is no need of these Glasses consequently the Telescope may at such a distance of four or six miles conveniently discover the whole Vessel a muchgreater bulk Now I demand what for species how many for number are the motions that are made upon the round top depending on the fluctuation of the Ship SALV We will suppose that the Ship goeth towards the East First in a calme Sea it would have no other motion than this of progression but adding the undulation of the Waves there shall result thence one which alternately hoysting and lowering the poop and prow maketh the round top to lean forwards and backwards other waves driving the vessel sidewayes bow the Mast to the Starboard and Larboard others may bring the ship somewhat abovt and bear her away by the Misne from East one while towards the Northeast another while toward the Southeast others bearing her up by the Carine may make her onely to rise and fall and in sum these motions are for species two one that changeth the direction of the Telescope angularly the other lineally without changing angle that is alwayes keeping the tube of the Instrument parallel to its self SAGR. Tell me in the next place if we having first directed the Telescope yonder away towards the Tower of Burano six miles from hence do turn it angularly to the right hand or to the left or else upwards or downwards but a straws breadth what effect shall it have upon us touching the finding out of the said tower SALV It would make us immediately lose sight of it for such a declination though small here may import there hundreds and thousands of yards SAGR. But if without changing the angle keeping the tube alwayes parallel to it self we should transfer it ten or twelve yards farther off to the right or left hand upwards or downwards what alteration would it make as to the Tower SALV The change would be absolutely undiscernable for that the spaces here and there being contained between parallel rayes the mutations made here and there ought to be equal and because the space which the Instrument discovers yonder is capable of many of those Towers therefore we shall not lose sight of it SAGR. Returning now to the Ship we may undoubtedly affirm that the Telescope moving to the right or left upwards or downwards and also forwards or backwards ten or fifteen fathom keeping it all the while parallel to its self the visive ray cannot stray from the point observed in the object more than those fifteen fathom and because in a distance of eight or ten miles the Instrument takes in a much greater space than the Gally or other Vessel kenn'd therefore that small mutation shall not make me lose sight of her The impediment therefore and the cause of losing the object cannot befall us unlesse upon the mutation made angularly since that Telescopes transportation higher or lower to the right or to
the sick from the sound to assigne the infected quarters in the heart of the City I had thought that the Pest-house ought to have been removed as far off as was possible Copernicus admireth the disposition of the parts of the Universe for that God hath constituted the grand Lamp which is to give light all over his Temple in the centre of it and not on one side And as to the Earths being betwixt Venus and Mars we will but hint the same and do you in favour of this Author trie to remove it thence But let us not mix these Rhetorical Flowers with solid Demonstrations rather let us leave them to the Orators or if you will to the Poets who know how in their drolling way to exalt by their prayses things most sordid yea and sometimes most pernicious And if any thing else remain let us dispatch it as we have done the rest SIMP There is the sixth and last argument wherein he maketh it a very improbale thing That a corruptible and dissipable body should move with a perpetual and regular motion and this be confirmeth with the example of living creatures which moving with a motion natural to them yet grow weary and have need of repose to restore their strength But what hath this motion to do with that of the Earth that in comparision to theirs is immense Besides to make it move with three motions that run and draw several wayes Who would ever assert such Paradoxes unlesse he had sworn to be their defender Nor doth that avail in this case which Copernicus alledgeth that by reason this motion is natural to the Earth and not violent it worketh contrary effects to violent motions and that those things dissolve and cannot long subsist to which impulse is conferred but those so made by nature do continue in their perfect disposure this answer sufficeth not I say for it is overthrown by that of ours For the animal is a natural body and not made by art and its motion is natural deriving it self from the soul that is from an intrinsick principle and that motion is violent whose beginning is without and on which the thing moved conferreth nothing however if the animal continueth its motion any long time it grows weary and also dyeth if it obstinately strive to persist therein You see then that in nature we meet on all sides with notions contrary to the Copernican Hypothesis and none in favour of it And for that I have nothing more wherein to take the part of this Opponent hear what he produceth against Keplerus with whom he disputeth upon that argument which the said Kepler bringeth against those who think it an inconvenient nay impossible thing to augment the Starry Sphere immensely as the Copernican Hypothesis requireth Kepler therefore instanceth saying Difficilius est accidens praeter modulum subjecti intendere quà m subjectum sine accidente augere Copernicus ergo verisimilius facit qui auget Orbem Stellarum fixarum absque motu quam Ptolomaeus qui anget motum fixarum immensâ velocitate Which makes this English It s harder to stretch the accident beyond the model of the subject than to augment the subject without the accident Copernicus hath more probability on his side who encreaseth the Orb of the fixed Stars without motion than Ptolomy who augmenteth the motion of the fixed Stars to an immense degree of velocity Which objection the Author answereth wondering how much Kepler deceived himself in saying that in the Ptolomaick Hypothesis the motion encreaseth beyond the model of the subject for in his judgment it doth not encrease save onely in conformity to the model and that according to its encreasement the velocity of the motion is augmented Which he proveth by supposing a machine to be framed that maketh one revolution in twenty four hours which motion shall be called most slow afterwards supposing its semidiameter to be prolonged as far as to the distance of the Sun its extreme will equal the velocity of the Sun and it being continued out unto the Starry Sphere it will equal the velocity of the fixed Stars though in the circumference of the machine it be very slow Now applying this consideration of the machine to the Starry Sphere let us imagine any point in its semidiameter as neer to the centre as is the semidiameter of the machine the same motion that in the Starry Sphere is exceeding swift shall in that point be exceeding slow But the great magnitude of the body is that which maketh it of exceeding slow to become exceeding swift although it continueth still the same and thus the velocity encreaseth not beyond the model of the subject but rather according to it and to its magnitude very differently from the imagination of Kepler SALV I do not believe that this Author hath entertained so mean and poor a conceit of Kepler as to perswade himself that he did not understand that the highest term of a line drawn from the centre unto the Starry Sphere moveth more swiftly than a point of the same line taken within a yard or two of the centre And therefore of necessity he must have conceived and comprehended that the mind and intention of Kepler was to have said that it is lesse inconvenient to encrease an immoveable body to an extraordinary magnitude than to ascribe an extraordinary velocity to a body though very bigge having regard to the model that is to the gauge and to the example of other natural bodies in which we see that the distance from the centre encreasing the velocity diminisheth that is that the periods of their circulations take up longer times But in rest which is not capable of augmentation or diminution the grandure or smalnesse of the body maketh no difference So that if the answer of the Author would be directed against the argument of Kepler it is necessary that that Author doth hold that to the movent principle it s one and the same to move in the same time a body very small or very immense in regard that the augmentation of velocity inseparably attends the augmentation of the masse But this again is contrary to the Architectonical rule of nature which doth in the lesser Spheres as we see in the Planets and most sensibly in the Medicean Stars observe to make the lesser Orbs to circulate in shorter times Whence the time of Saturns revolution is longer than all the times of the other lesser Spheres it being thirty years now the passing from this to a Sphere very much bigger and to make it move in 24. hours may very well be said to exceed the rules of the model So that if we would but attentively consider it the Authors answer opposeth not the intent and sense of the argument but the expressing and manner of delivering of it where again the Author is injurious and cannot deny but that he artificially dissembled his understanding of the words that he
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
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
for the Reasons alledged admit in many places Expositions far from the Sense of the words and moreover we not being able to affirm that all Interpreters speak by Divine Inspiration For if it were so then there would be no difference between them about the Senses of the same places I should think that it would be an act of great prudence to make it unlawful for any one to usurp Texts of Scripture and as it were to force them to maintain this or that Naturall Conclusion for truth of which Sence Demonstrative and necessary Reasons may one time or other assure us the contrary For who will prescribe bounds to the Wits of men Who will assert that all that is sensible and knowable in the World is already discovered and known Will not they that in other points disagree with us confess this and it is a great truth that Eaquae scimus sint minima pars corum quae ignoramus That those Truths which we know are very few in comparison of those which we know not Nay more if we have it from the Mouth of the Holy Ghost that Deus tradidit Mundum disputationi eorum ut non inveniat homo opus quod operatus est Deus ab initio ad finem One ought not as I conceive to stop the way to free Philosophating touching the things of the World and of Nature as if that they were already certainly found and all manifest nor ought it to be counted rashness if one do not sit down satisfied with the opinions now become as it were commune nor ought any persons to be displeased if others do not hold in natural Disputes to that opinion which best pleaseth them and especially touching Problems that have for thousands of years been controverted amongst the greatest Philosophers as is the Stability of the Sun and Mobility of the Earth an opinion held by Pythagoras and by his whole Sect by Heraclides Ponticus who was of the same opininion by Phylolaus the Master of Plato and by Plato himself as Aristotle relateth and of which Plutarch writeth in the life of Numa that the said Plato when he was grown old said It is a most absurd thing to think otherwise The same was believed by Aristarchus Samius as we have it in Archimedes and probably by Archimedes himself by Nicetas the Philosopher upon the testimony of Scicero and by many others And this opinion hath finally been amplified and with many Observations and Demonstrations confirmed by Nicholaus Copernicus And Seneca a most eminent Philosopher in his Book De Cometis advertizeth us that we ought with great diligence seek for an assured knowledge whether it be Heaven or the Earth in which the Diurnal Conversion resides And for this cause it would probably be prudent and profitable counsel if besides the Articles which concern our Salvation and the establishment of our Faith against the stability of which there is no fear that any valid and solid Doctrine can ever rise up men would not aggregate and heap up more without necessity And if it be so it would certainly be a preposterous thing to introduce such Articles at the request of persons who besides that we know not that they speak by inspiration of Divine Grace we plainly see that there might be wished in them the understanding which would be necessary first to enable them to comprehend and then to discuss the Demonstrations wherewith the subtiler Sciences proceed in confirming such like Conclusions Nay more I should say were it lawful to speak my judgment freely on this Argument that it would haply more suit with the Decorum and Majesty of those Sacred Volumes if care were taken that every shallow and vulgar Writer might not authorize his Books which are not seldome grounded upon foolish fancies by inserting into them Places of Holy Scripture interpreted or rather distorted to Senses as remote from the right meaning of the said Scripture as they are neer to derirision who not without ostentation flourish out their Writings therewith Examples of such like abuses there might many be produced but for this time I will confine my self to two not much besides these matters of Astronomy One of which is that of those Pamphlets which were published against the Medicean Planets of which I had the fortune to make the discovery against the existence of which there were brought many places of Sacred Scripture Now that all the World seeth them to be Planets I would gladly hear with what new interpretations those very Antagonists do expound the Scripture and excuse their own simplicity The other example is of him who but very lately hath Printed against Astronomers and Philosophers that the Moon doth not receive its light from the Sun but is of its own nature resplendent which imagination he in the close confirmeth or to say better perswadeth himself that he confirmeth by sundry Texts of Scripture which he thinks cannot be reconciled unlesse his opinion should be true and necessary Neverthelesse the Moon of it self is Tenebrose and yet it is no lesse lucid than the Splendor of the Sun Hence it is manifest that these kinde of Authors in regard they did not dive into the true Sence of the Scriptures would in case their authority were of any great moment have imposed a necessity upon others to believe such Conclusions for true as were repugnant to manifest Reason and to Sense Which abuse Deus avertat that it do not gain Countenance and Authority for if it should it would in a short time be necessary to proscribe and inhibit all the Contemplative Sciences For being that by nature the number of such as are very unapt to understand perfectly both the Sacred Scriptures and the other Sciences is much greater than that of the skilfull and intelligent those of the first sort superficially running over the Scriptures would arrogate to themselves an Authority of decreeing upon all the Questions in Nature by vertue of some Word by them misunderstood and produced by the Sacred Pen-men to another purpose Nor would the small number of the Intelligent be able to repress the furious Torrent of those men who would finde so many the more followers in that the gaining the reputation of Wise men without pains or Study is far more grateful to humane Nature than the consuming our selves with restless contemplations about the most painfull Arts. Therefore we ought to return infinite thanks to Almighty God who of his Goodness freeth us from this fear in that he depriveth such kinde of persons of all Authority and reposeth the Consulting Resolving and Decreeing upon so important Determinations in the extraordinary Wisdom and Candor of most Sacred Fathers and in the Supream Authority of those who being guided by his Holy Spirit cannot but determin Holily So ordering things that of the levity of those other men there is no account made This kinde of men are those as I believe against whom not without Reason Grave and Holy Writers do so much
another conceipt thereof they would meet peradventure as many others that accord with it and haply would judge that the Holy Church doth very appositly teach That God placed the Sun in the Centre of Heaven and that thereupon by revolving it in it self after the manner of a Wheel He contributed the ordinary Courses to the Moon and other Erratick Stars whilst that she Sings Coeli Deus sanctissime Qui lucidum Centrum Poli Candore pingis igneo Augens decoro lumine Quarto die qui flammeam Solis rotam constituens Lunae ministras ordinem Vagosque cursus Syderum They might say that the Name of Firmament very well agreeth ad literam to the Starry Sphere and to all that which is above the Planetary Conversions which according to this Hypothesis is altogether firme and immoveable Ad litteram the Earth moving circularly they might understand its Poles where it 's said Nec dum Terram fecerat flumina Cardines Orbis Terrae Which Cardines or Hinges seem to be ascribed to the Earth in vain if it be not to turn upon them FINIS AN ABSTRACT OF THE Learned Treatise OF JOHANNIS KEPLERUS The Emperours Mathematician ENTITULED His Introduction upon MARS IT must be confessed that there are very many who are devoted to Holinesse that dissent from the Judgment of Copernicus fearing to give the Lye to the Holy Ghost speaking in the Scriptures if they should say that the Earth moveth and the Sun stands still But let such consider that since we judge of very many and those the most principal things by the Sense of Seeing it is impossible that we should alienate our Speech from this Sense of our Eyes Therefore many things daily occur of which we speak according to the Sense of Sight when as we certainly know that the things themselves are otherwise An Example whereof we have in that Verse of Virgil Provehimur portu Terraeque urbesque recedunt So when we come forth of the narrow straight of some Valley we say that a large Field discovereth it self So Christ to Peter Duc in altum Lanch forth into the Deep or on high as if the Sea were higher than its Shores For so it seemeth to the Eye but the Opticks shew the cause of this fallacy Yet Christ useth the most received Speech although it proceed from this delusion of the Eyes Thus we conceive of the Rising and Setting of the Stars that is to say of their Ascension and Descension when at the same time that we affirm the Sun riseth others say that it goeth down See my Optices Astronomiae cap. 10. fol. 327. So in like manner the Ptolomaicks affirm that the Planets stand still when for some dayes together they seem to be fixed although they believe them at that very time to be moved in a direct line either downwards to or upwards from the Earth Thus the Writers of all Nations use the word Solstitium and yet they deny that the Sun doth really stand still Likewise there will never any man be so devoted to Copernicus but he will say the Sun entereth into Cancer and Leo although he granteth that the Earth enters Capricorn or Aquarius And so in other cases of the like nature But now the Sacred Scriptures speaking to men of vulgar matters in which they were not intended to instruct men after the manner of men that so they might be understood by men do use such Expressions as are granted by all thereby to insinuate other things more Mysterious and Divine What wonder is it then if the Scripture speaks according to mans apprehension at such time when the Truth of things doth dissent from the Conception that all men whether Learned or Unlearned have of them Who knows not that it is a Poetical allusion Psal. 19. where whilst under the similitude of the Sun the Course of the Gospel as also the Peregrination of our Lord Christ in this World undertaken for our sakes is described The Sun is said to come forth of his Tabernacle of the Horizon as a Bridegroom out of his Chamber rejoycing as a Giant to run a Race Which Virgil thus imitates Tithono croceum linquens Aurora cubile For the first Poets were amongst the Jews The Psalmist knew that the Sun went not forth of the Horizon as out of its Tabernacle yet it seemeth to the Eye so to do Nor did he believe that the Sun moved for that it appeared to his sight so to do And yet he saith both for that both were so to his seeming Neither is it to be adjudged false in either Sense for the perception of the Eyes hath its verity fit for the more secret purpose of the Psalmist in shadowing forth the current passage of the Gospel as also the Peregrination of the Son of God Joshua likewise mentioneth the Vallies on or in which the Sun and Moon moved for that they appeared to him at Jordan so to do And yet both these Pen-men may obtain their ends David and with him Syracides the magnificence of God being made known which caused these things to be in this manner represented to sight or otherwise the mystical meaning by means of these Visibles being discerned And Joshua in that the Sun as to his Sense of Seeing staid a whole day in the midst of Heaven whereas at the same time to others it lay hid under the Earth But incogitant persons onely look upon the contrariety of the words The Sun stood still that is The Earth stood still not considering that this contradiction is confined within the limits of the Opticks and Astronomy For which cause it is not outwardly exposed to the notice and use of men Nor will they understand that the onely thing Joshuah prayed for was that the Mountains might not intercept the Sun from him which request he expressed in words that suited with his Ocular Sense Besides it had been very unseasonable at that time to think of Astronomy or the Errours in Sight for if any one should have told him that the Sun could not really move upon the Valley of Ajalon but onely in relation to Sense would not Joshuah have replyed that his desire was that the day might be prolonged so it were by any means whatsoever In like manner would he have answered if any one had started a question about the Suns Mobility and the Earths Motion But God easily understood by Joshuahs words what he asked for and by arresting the Earths Motion made the Sun in his apprehension seem to stand still For the summ of Joshuahs Prayer amounts to no more but this that it might thus appear to him let it in the mean time be what it would of it self For that it s so seeming was not in vain and ridiculous but accompanied with the desired effect But read the tenth Chap. of my Book that treats of the Optick part of Astronomy where thou shalt finde the Reasons why the Sun doth in this manner seem to all mens thinking to
Stadia or furlongs The Cause and Reason of whose Motion neither Ptolomy nor any other Astrologers could ever comprehend And yet the Reasons of these things are most plainly explained and demonstrated by Copernicus from the Motion of the Earth with which he sheweth that all the other Phaenomena of the Universe do more aptly accord Which opinion of his is not in the least contradicted by what Solomon saith in Ecclesiastes But the Earth abideth for ever For that Text signifieth no more but this That although the succession of Ages and generations of Men on Earth be various yet the Earth it self is still one and the same and continueth without any sensible alteration For the words run thus One Generation passeth away and another Generation cometh but the Earth abideth for ever So that it hath no coherence with its Context as Philosophers shew if it be expounded to speak of the Earths immobility And although in this Chapter Ecclesiastes and in many others Holy Writ ascribes Motion to the Sun which Copernicus will have to stand fixed in the Centre of the Universe yet it makes nothing against his Position For the Motion that belongs to the Earth is by way of speech assigned to the Sun even by Copernicus himself and those who are his followers so that the Revolution of the Earth is often by them phrased The Revolution of the Sun To conclude No place can be produced out of Holy Scripture which so clearly speaks the Earths Immobility as this doth its Mobility Therefore this Text of which we have spoken is easily reconciled to this Opinion And to set forth the Wonderful power and Wisdome of God who can indue and actuate the Frame of the Whole Earth it being of a monstrous weight by Nature with Motion this our Divine pen-man addeth And the pillars thereof tremble As if he would teach us from the Doctrine laid down that it is moved from its Foundations AN EPISTLE Of the Reverend Father PAOLO ANTONIO FOSCARINI A CARMELITE Concerning The PYTHAGORIAN and COPERNICAN Opinion OF The Mobility of the EARTH AND Stability of the SVN AND Of the New Systeme or Constituion OF THE WORLD IN WHICH The Authorities of SACRED SCRIPTVRE and ASSERTIONS of DIVINES commonly alledged against this Opinion are Reconciled WRITTEN To the most Reverend FATHER SEBASTIANO FANTONI General of the Order of CARMELITES Englished from the Original BY THOMAS SALVSBVRIE So quis indiget sapientia postulet à Deo Jacobi 1. versu 5. Optaevi datus est mihi sensus Sapientiae 7. versu 7. LONDON Printed by WILLIAM LEYBOVRN MDCLXI To the Most Reverend Father SEBASTIANO FANTONI General of the Order of CARMELITES IN obedience to the command of the Noble Signore Vincenzo Carraffa a Neapolitan and Knight of S. John of Jerusalem a person to speak the truth of so great Merit that in him Nobility of Birth Affability of Manners Universal knowledge of Arts and things Piety and Vertue do all contend for preheminence I resolved with my self to undertake the Defence of the Writings of the New or rather Renewed and from the Dust of Oblivion in which it hath long lain hid lately Revived Opinion Of the Mobility of the Earth and Stability of the Sun in times past found out first by Pythagoras and at last reduced into Practice by Copernicus who likewise hath deduced the Position of the Systeme and Constitution of the World and its parts from that Hypothesis on which Subject I have formerly writ to You Most Reverend Sir But in regard I am bound for Rome to preach there by your Command and since this Speculation may seem more proper for another Treatise to wit a Volume of Cosmography which I am in hand with and which I am daily busie about that it may come forth in company with my Compendium of the Liberal Arts which I have already finished rather than now to discuss it by it self I thought to forbear imparting what I have done for the present Yet I was desirous to give in the mean time a brief account of this my Determination and to shew You Most Reverend Father to whom I owe all my indeavours and my very self the Foundations on which this Opinion may be grounded least whilst otherwise it is favoured with much probability it be found in reality to be extreamly repugnant as at first sight it seems not onely to Physical Reasons and Common Principles received on all hands which cannot do so much harm but also which would be of far worse consequence to many Authorities of sacred Scripture Upon which account many at their first looking into it explode it as the most fond Paradox and Monstrous Capriccio that ever was heard of Which thing proceeds only from an antiquated and long confirmed Custome which hath so hardened men in and habituated them to Vulgar Plausible and for that cause by all men aswell learned as unlearned Approved Opinions that they cannot be removed one step from them So great is the force of Custome which not unfitly is stiled a second Nature prevailing over the whole World that touching things men are rather pleased with delighted in and desirous of those which though evil and obnoxious are by use made familiar to them than such wherewith though better they are not accustomed and acquainted So in like manner and that chiefly in Opinions which when once they are rooted in the Mind men start at and reject all others whatsoever not only those that are contrary to but even all that ever so little disagree with or vary from theirs as harsh to the Ear discoloured to the Eye unpleasant to the Smell nauseous to the Tast rough to the Touch. And no wonder For Physical Truths are ordinarily judged and considered by men not according to their Essence but according to the prescript of some one whose description or definition of them gaines him Authority amongst the vulgar Which authority nevertheless since 't is no more than humane ought not to be so esteemed as that that which doth manifestly appear to the contrary whether from better Reasons lately found out or from Sense it self should for its sake be contemned and slighted Nor is Posterity so to be confined but that it may and dares not only proceed farther but also bring to light better and truer Experiments than those which have been delivered to us by the Ancients For the Genius's of the Antients as in Inventions they did not much surpass the Wits of our times so for the perfecting of Inventions this Age of ours seems not only to equal but far to excell former Ages Knowledge whether in the Liberal or Mechanical Arts daily growing to a greater height Which Assertion might be easily proved were it not that in so clear a case there would be more danger of obscuring than hopes of illustrating it with any farther light But that I may not wholly be silent in this point have not the several Experiments of Moderns in many things stopped the mouth
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
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
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