Page:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu/61

 to the Ocean: but those Hills, being by some cause or other separated, and a way being opened for the Sea to break in, it made such an inundation, that it gave occasion to the calling of it since the Mid-land Sea: the greatness whereof considered, and the divers aspects the surfaces of the Water and Earth then made, had it been beheld afar off, there is no doubt but so great a change might have been discerned by one that was then in the Moon; as also to us inhabitants of the Earth, the like alterations would be perceived in the Moon; but we find not in antiquity, that ever there was such a thing seen; therefore we have no cause to say, that any of the Cœlestial bodies are alterable, &c.

That so great alterations have hapned in the Moon, I dare not say, but for all that, I am not yet certain but that such changes might occur; and because such a mutation could onely represent unto us some kind of variation between the more clear, and more obscure parts of the Moon, I know not whether we have had on Earth observant Selenographers, who have for any considerable number of years, instructed us with so exact Selenography, as that we should confidently conclude, that there hath no such change hapned in the face of the Moon; of the figuration of which I find no more particular description, than the saying of some, that it represents an humane face; of others, that it is like the muzle of a Lyon; and of others, that it is Cain with a bundle of thorns on his back: therefore, to say Heaven is unalterable, because that in the Moon, or other Cœlestial bodies, no such alterations are seen, as discover themselves on Earth, is a bad illation, and concludeth nothing.

And there is another odd kind of scruple in this Argument of Simplicius, running in my mind, which I would gladly have answered; therefore I demand of him, whether the Earth before the Mediterranian inundation was generable and corruptible, or else began then so to be?

It was doubtless generable and corruptible also before that time; but that was so vast a mutation, that it might have been observed as far as the Moon.

Go to; if the Earth was generable and corruptible before that Inundation, why may not the Moon be so likewise without such a change? Or why should that be necessary in the Moon, which importeth nothing on Earth?

It is a shrewd question: But I am doubtfull that Simplicius a little altereth the Text of Aristotle, and the other Peripateticks, who say, they hold the Heavens unalterable, for that they see therein no one star generate or corrupt, which is probably a less part of Heaven, than a City is of the Earth, and yet innumerable of these have been destroyed, so as that no mark of them hath remain'd.