Page:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu/65

 lar figures, and seem to us like flakes of snow, or flocks of wooll, or moaths flying: they vary fire amongst themselves, and one while sever, another while meet, and most of all beneath the Sun, about which, as about their Centre, they continually move. But yet, must we not therefore grant, that they are generated or dissolved, but that at sometimes they are hid behind the body of the Sun, and at other times, though remote from it, yet are they not seen for the vicinity of the immeasurable light of the Sun; in regard that in the eccentrick Orb of the Sun, there is constituted, as it were, an Onion, composed of many folds one within another, each of which, being * studded with certain small spots, doth move; and albeit their motion at first seemeth inconstant and irregular, yet neverthelesse, it is said at last, to be observed that the very same spots, as before, do within a determinate time return again." This seemeth to me the fittest answer that hath been found to assigne a reason of that same appearance, and withal to maintain the incorruptability and ingenerability of the Heavens; and if this doth not suffice; there wants not more elevated wits, which will give you other more convincing.

If this of which we dispute, were some point of Law, or other part of the Studies called Humanity, wherein there is neither truth nor falshood, if we will give sufficient credit to the acutenesse of the wit, readinesse of answers, and the general practice of Writers, then he who most aboundeth in these, makes his reason more probable and plausible; but in Natural Sciences, the conclusions of which are true and necessary, and wherewith the judgment of men hath nothing to do, one is to be more cautious how he goeth about to maintain any thing that is false; for a man but of an ordinary wit, if it be his good fortune to be of the right side, may lay a thousand Demosthenes and a thousand Aristotles at his feet. Therefore reject those hopes and conceits, wherewith you flatter your self, that there can be any men so much more learned, read, and versed in Authors, than we, that in despite of nature, they should be able to make that become true, which is false. And seeing that of all the opinions that have been hitherto alledged touching the essence of these Solar spots, this instanced in by you, is in your judgment the truest, it followeth (if this be so) that all the rest are false; and to deliver you from this also, which doubtlesse is a most false Chimæra, over-passing infinite other improbabilities that are therein, I shall propose against it onely two experiments; one is, that many of those spots are seen to arise in the midst of the Solar ring, and many likewise to dissolve and vanish at a great distance from the circumference of the Sun; a necessary Argu-