Page:The Gradual Acceptance of the Copernican Theory of the Universe.djvu/132



(Thomæ Fieni Epistolica Quæstio: An verum sit, coelum moveri et terram quiescere? Londini, 1655.)

To the eminent and noble scholars, Tobias Matthias and George Gays:

T is proved that the heavens are moved and the earth is stationary: First; by authority; for besides the fact that this is asserted by Aristotle and Ptolemy whom wellnigh all Philosophers and Mathematicians have followed by unanimous consent, except for Copernicus, Bernardus Patricius and a very few others, the Holy Scriptures plainly attest it in at least two places which I have seen. In Joshua, are the words: Steteruntque sol et luna donec ulcisceretur gens de inimicis suis. And a little further on: Stetit itaque sol in medio cœli, et non festinavit occumbere spatio unius diei, et non fuit antea et postea tam longa dies. The Scriptures obviously refer by these words to the motion of the primum mobile by which the sun and the moon are borne along in their diurnal course and the day is defined; and it indicates that the heavens are moved as well as the primum mobile. Then Ecclesiastes, chapter I, reads: Generatio præterit, et generatio advenit, terra autem semper stat, oritur sol et occidit, et ad locum suum revertitur.

Secondly, it is proved by reason. All the heavens and stars were made in man's behalf and, with other terrestrial bodies, are the servants of man to warm, light, and vivify him.

This they could not do unless in moving they applied themselves by turns to different parts of the world. And it is more likely that they would apply themselves by their own movement to man and the place in which man lives, than that man should come to them by the movement of his own seat or habitation. For they are the servants of man; man is not their

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