Page:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu/290

 vations by the addition or substraction of two or three minutes, and with that amendment to reduce it to possibility, a man ought not to essay to adjust it by the addition or substraction of fifteen, twenty, or fifty.

I think the Author would not deny this: for granting that they are expert and judicious men, it ought to be thought that they did rather erre little than much.

Observe again; The places where the new Star is placed, are some of them manifestly impossible, and others possible. Absolutely impossible it is, that it should be an infinite space superiour to the fixed Stars, for there is no such place in the world; and if there were, the Star there scituate would have been imperceptible to us: it is also impossible that it should go creeping along the superficies of the Earth; and much lesse that it should be within the said Terrestrial Globe. Places possible are these that be in controversie, it not interferring with our understanding, that a visible object in the likenesse of a Star might be aswell above the Moon, as below it. Now whilst one goeth about to compute by the way of Observations and Calculations made with the utmost certainty that humane diligence can attain unto what its place was, it is found that the greatest part of those Calculations make it more than infinitely superiour to the Firmament, others make it very neer to the surface of the Earth, and some also under the same; and of the rest, which place it in situations not impossible, none of them agree with each other; insomuch that it must be confessed, hat all those observations are necessarily false; so that if we would nevertheless collect some fruit from so many laborious calculations, we must have recourse to the corrections, amending all the observations.

But the Authour will say, that of the observations that assign to the Star impossible places, there ought no account to be made, as being extreamly erroneous and false; and those onely ought to be accepted, that constitute it in places not impossible: and amongst these a man ought to seek, by help of the most probable, and most numerous concurrences, not if the particular and exact situation, that is, its true distance from the centre of the Earth, at least, whether it was amongst the Elements, or else amongst the Cœlestial bodies.

The discourse which you now make, is the self same that the Author made, in favour of his cause, but with too unreasonable a disadvantage to his adversaries; and this is that principal point that hath made me excessively to wonder at the too great confidence that he expressed to have, no less of his own authority, than of the blindness and inadvertency of the Astronomers; in favour of whom I will speak, and you shall answer for the Author.