Page:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu/71

 Cœlestial bodies, namely, the Sun, Moon, and the other Stars, which are ordained for no other use but to serve the Earth, need no other qualities for attaining of that end, save onely those of light and motion.

How? Will you affirm that nature hath produced and designed so many vast perfect and noble Cœlestial bodies, impassible, immortal, and divine, to no other use but to serve the passible, frail, and mortal Earth? to serve that which you call the drosse of the World, and sink of all uncleannesse? To what purpose were the Cœlestial bodies made immortal, &c. to serve a frail, &c. Take away this subserviency to the Earth, and the innumerable multitude of Cœlestial bodies become wholly unuseful, and superfluous, since they neither have nor can have any mutual operation betwixt themselves; because they are all unalterable, immutable, impassible: For if, for Example, the Moon be impassible, what influence can the Sun or any other Star have upon her? it would doubtlesse have far lesse effect upon her, than that of one who would with his looks or imagination, lignifie a piece of Gold. Moreover, it seemeth to me, that whilst the Cœlestial bodies concurre to the generation and alteration of the Earth, they themselves are also of necessity alterable; for otherwise I cannot understand how the application of the Sun or Moon to the Earth, to effect production, should be any other than to lay a marble Statue by a Womans side, and from that conjunction to expect children.

Corruptibility, alteration, mutation, &c. are not in the whole Terrestrial Globe, which as to its whole, is no lesse eternal than the Sun or Moon, but it is generable and corruptible as to its external parts; but yet it is also true that likewise in them generation and corruption are perpetual, and as such require the heavenly eternal operations; and therefore it is necessary that the Cœlestial bodies be eternal.

All this is right; but if the corruptibility of the superficial parts of the Earth be nowise prejudicial to the eternity of its whole Globe, yea, if their being generable, corruptible, alterable, &c. gain them great ornament and perfection; why cannot, and ought not you to admit alteration, generation, &c. likewise in the external parts of the Cœlestial Globes, adding to them ornament, without taking from them perfection, or bereaving them of action; yea rather encreasing their effects, by granting not onely that they all operate on the Earth, but that they mutually operate upon each other, and the Earth also upon them all?

This cannot be, because the generations, mutations, &c. which we should suppose v. g. in the Moon; would be vain and uselesse, & natura nihil frustra facit.