Page:Discourse Concerning the Natation of Bodies.djvu/4

2 and future, especially if the time be for many Moneths or Years; I am therefore forced, with other Observations, and more exact than the former, and in times more remote from one another, to correct the Tables of such Motions, and limit them even to the shortest moment: for such exactnesse my first Observations suffice not; not only in regard of the short intervals of Time, but because I had not as then found out a way to measure the distances between the said Planets by any Instrument: I Observed such Intervals with simple relation to the Diameter of the Body of Jupiter, taken, as we have said, by the eye, the which, though they admit not errors of above a Minute, yet they suffice not for the determination of the exact greatness of the Spheres of those Stars. But now that I have hit upon a way of taking such measures without failing, scarce in a very few Seconds, I will continue the observation to the very occultation of JUPITER, which shall serve to bring us to the perfect knowledge of the Motions, and Magnitudes of the Orbes of the said Planets, together also with some other consequences arising. I adde to these things observation of some obscure Spots, which are discovered in the Solar Body, which changing, position in that, propounds to our consideration a great argument either that the Sun revolves in it selfe, or that perhaps other Stares, in like manner as Venus and Mercury, revolve about it, invisible in other times, by reason of their small digressions, lesse than that of Mercury, and only visible when they interpose between the Sun and our eye, or else hint the truth of both this and that; the certainty of which things ought not to be contemned, nor omitted.

Continuall observation hath at last assured me that these Spots are matters contiguous to the Body of the Sun, there continually produced in great number, and afterwards dissolved, some in a shorter, some in a longer time, and to be by the Conversion or Revolution of the Sun in it selfe, which in a Lunar Moneth, or thereabouts, finisheth its Period, caried about in a Circle, an accident great of it selfe, and greater for its Consequences.

As to the other particular in the next place* Many causes have moved me to write the present Tract, the subject whereof, is the Dispute which I held some dayes since, with some learned men of this City, about which, as your Highnesse knows, have followed many Discourses: The principall of which Causes hath been the Intimation of your Highnesse, having commended to me Writing, as a singular means to make true known from false, reall from apparent Reasons, farr better than by Disputing vocally, where the one or the other, or very often both the Disputants, through too