Page:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu/285

 But this seemeth to me a very lame evasion; for the adverse party may with as much reason reply, that those are erroneous wherewith he collecteth the star to have been in the Elementary Region.

Oh Simplicius, if I could but make you comprehend the craft, though no great craftinesse of this Author, I should make you to wonder, and also to be angry to see how that he palliating his sagacity with the vail of the simplicity of your self; and the rest of meer Philosophers, would insinuate himself into your good opinion, by tickling your ears, and swelling your ambition, pretending to have convinced and silenced these petty Astronomers, who went about to assault the impregnable inalterability of the Peripatetick Heaven, and which is more, to have foild and conquered them with their own arms. I will try with all my ability to do the same; and in the mean time let Sagredus take it in good part, if Simplicius and I try his patience, perhaps a little too much, whilst that with a superfluous circumlocution (superfluous I say to his most nimble apprehension) I go about to make out a thing, which it is not convenient should be hid and unknown unto him.

I shall not onely without wearinesse, but also with much delight hearken to your discourses; and so ought all Peripatetick Philosophers, to the end they may know how much they are oblieged to this their Protector.

Tell me, Simplicius, whether you do well comprehend, how, the new star being placed in the meridian circle yonder towards the North, the same to one that from the South should go towards the North, would seem to rise higher and higher above the Horizon, as much as the Pole, although it should have been scituate amongst the fixed stars; but, that in case it were considerably lower, that is nearer to the Earth, it would appear to ascend more than the said pole, and still more by how much its vicinity was greater?

I think that I do very well conceive the same; in token whereof I will try if I can make a mathematical Scheme of it, and in this great circle [in Fig. 1. of this Dialogue.] I will marke the pole P; and in these two lower circles I will note two stars beheld from one place on the Earth, which let be A; and let the two stars be these B and C, beheld in the same line ABC, which line I prolong till it meet with a fixed star in D. And then walking along the Earth, till I come to the term E, the two stars will appear to me separated from the fixed star D, and advanced neerer to the pole P, and the lower star B more, which will appear to me in G, and the star C lesse, which will appear to me in F, but the fixed star D will have kept the same distance from the Pole.