Page:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu/115

 ciples of Ptolomy and Copernicus, and which of their opinions is the more probable and rational; that, which affirmeth the substance of the Cœlestial bodies to be ingenerable, incorruptible, unalterable, impassible, and in a word, exempt from all kind of change, save that of local, and therefore to be a fifth essence, quite different from this of our Elementary bodies, which are generable, corruptible, alterable, &c. or else the other, which taking away such deformity from the parts of the World, holdeth the Earth to enjoy the same perfections as the other integral bodies of the universe; and esteemeth it a moveable and erratick Globe, no lesse than the Moon, Jupiter, Venus, or any other Planet: And lastly, maketh many particular parallels betwixt the Earth and Moon; and more with the Moon, than with any other Planet; haply by reason we have greater and more certain notice of it, as being lesse distant from us. And having, lastly, concluded this second opinion to have more of probability with it than the first, I should think it best in the subsequent discourses to begin to examine whether the Earth be esteemed immoveable, as it hath been till now believed by most men, or else moveable, as some ancient Philosophers held, and others of not very recesse times, were of opinion; and if it be moveable, to enquire of what kind its motion may be?

I see already what way I am to take; but before we offer to proceed any farther, I am to say something to you touching those last words which you spake, how that the opinion which holds the Earth to be endued with the same conditions that the Cœlestial bodies enjoy, seems to be more 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.

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.

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.