[Margin: On the dignity of this argument.]

[I.] Now at last we approach the controversy which is, among the Astronomical [controversies], by far the most celebrated—especially in this century—and, by the very nobility of the argument, most apt for raising up minds and sharpening judgments. And so deservedly Seneca (bk. 7 of the Natural Questions, ch. 2), when he had moved the question for what cause Comets, if they consist of thin matter, last so long, and are not dissipated by the diurnal conversion of the heaven—in these words: “But if [Comets] are nothing else than pure fire, and remain for six months, nor does the conversion and velocity of the world dissolve them—[then] those too, the very many [stars] which likewise consist of thin matter, are not on this account shaken apart by the assiduous turning of the heaven”—most shrewdly notes that to the solution of this question pertains another question, most worthy of contemplation, about the motion of the earth; and immediately subjoined: “It will also be relevant to have shaken this [question] out, that we may know whether the World goes around with the Earth standing still, or whether, the World standing still, the Earth turns. For there have been those who said that we are [the ones] whom the nature of things carries, [we] not knowing [it]; and that risings and settings come about not by the motion of the heaven, but [that] we ourselves rise and set. It is a thing worthy of contemplation, that we may know in what state of things we are—whether we have been allotted the most sluggish, or the swiftest, seat; whether God moves all things around us, or [moves] us.” Than which nothing more excellent could be said for the excellence of this treatise.

[Margin: On the necessity of this argument.]

[II.] Further, the necessity of settling this controversy is imposed on us—especially in view of the subject of the work undertaken—by the two supreme moderatrices and arbiters of our intellect, Reason and Authority. For, to touch briefly on Reason: nowhere has Astronomy (which is subaltern to Mathematics and Physics) clashed more sharply with the rest of Physics than on the occasion of this controversy. For hence the Philolaics, Aristarcheans, and Copernicans have armed arguments against the constancy and stability of the Earth, from every kind of ancient and recent Phenomena; hence the Peripatetics—and so almost all the Physicists—have called together, from every quarter, the forces and notable properties of the Elements, to fortify and defend the citadel of the Earth. The former, that they might more freely furnish victory and triumph to the novelty of the hypothesis, have also contrived a new Physics of the motion of the Elements and of elementary bodies; the latter, on the contrary, upon the most ancient foundation of Nature, have built up a new mass of more solid reasons against the innovating assaults—so that now not the Astronomers and Philosophers among themselves, nor those fabulous Gods with the Giants, but the heavens themselves with the elements, seem to have fought it out. And the reasons devised on both sides are sometimes of such great subtlety, and the stratagems of sophisms or paralogisms [are] adorned with such a great appearance of truth, that they can deceive even the most cautious [reader], unless again and again he look about himself and them. So that it is by no means wonderful that not only those lightly imbued with the principles of Astronomy, but [those] otherwise most skilled in this sublime science, have neither penetrated the depth of the Copernican hypothesis, nor repelled its falsity by necessary reasons, but by lighter arguments than was fitting. Whence it has come about that the spirits of that sect were raised up, and that it dared, everywhere through Germany, England, France, and even Italy itself, to sing that triumphal “Io!”—and to cast up to the Philosophers, and to some Theologians, [their] inexperience of the celestial as well as the terrestrial revolutions.

[III.] But these [things] would perhaps be tolerable, if these dissensions had not at length come to this—that they bring into peril the Authority (I do not say of Vesta or of the Vestal Priests, but) of the Catholic Church in defining controversies of this kind, nay, even of Sacred Scripture. For indeed, if we shall have granted to the Copernicans that license which they have assumed for themselves—of interpreting the divine letters, and of eluding the Ecclesiastical decrees—it will perhaps not be contained within the bounds of Astronomy alone, or of natural Philosophy, but will be able to be extended, through others, to other and more sacred dogmas too; if, namely, it shall once be permitted, without manifest necessity, to deny the literal sense of the divine codex. But that there is no necessity of receding from it—whether from the principles of Astronomy or of Physics—will hereafter have to be shown by us, however much of genius and artifice the hypothesis of the moved Earth may display. Which, before I undertake to do, I think the chief Authors must be reviewed beforehand—both those who have written for Copernicus’s suppositions, and those who [have written] against them, and have hitherto come to my hands—besides those who have built their own opinions upon this hypothesis [as] already supposed.

Authors for Copernicus’s Hypothesis

[IV.] Copernicus himself (in the Epistle to Paul III, and On the Revolutions bk. 1, from ch. 5 to 11, and bk. 3, from ch. 3, and bk. 5, ch. 2 & 3); Georg Joachim Rheticus (in the First Narration on the books of the Revolutions of Copernicus, his teacher, with the preface and additions of Maestlin); John Kepler (in the Prodromus, or Cosmographic Mystery, with the Appendix of Michael Maestlin to the same Prodromus; and in the book On the New Star, ch. 15 & 16; and in the Introduction to the Commentaries on Mars; and in the Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, especially bk. 1, part 3, and the whole of bk. 4); Christoph Rothmann (in the Epistles to Tycho, especially [that] of the year 1590, April 18, which is had on p. 284—although he afterward “gave his hands” [submitted] to Tycho, as Tycho relates in the Epistles, p. 92); Galileo Galilei (in the four Dialogues on the two greatest World-systems, the Ptolemaic and the Copernican, first published in Italian in the year 1632, but afterward, now given Latinity, published at Lyons in the year 1641—where, although he professes that he proposes the reasons on both sides non-committally, yet he absolutely concludes that, if one must stand by mere reasons, the Copernican hypothesis is to be adhered to); William Gilbert (bk. 6 On the Magnet—an asserter, however, only of the diurnal motion); Paolo Antonio Foscarini the Carmelite (in the Epistle to Sebastiano Fantoni, the General [of the order], on the mobility of the Earth and the stability of the Sun, which David Loteus rendered into Latin); Diego de Zúñiga (in the Commentaries on Job); the Aristarchus Revived, published at Paris with the author’s name suppressed; the Philolaus published in the same place in the year 1634—but [the one] whose author Ismaël Bullialdus indicates himself [to be] (in his Philolaic Astronomy, bk. 1); Jacob Lansberge (in the Apology for the commentations of Philip Lansberge on the diurnal and annual motion of the earth, against Libert Froidmont’s Vesta, or Anti-Aristarchus, and against Giovanni Battista Morin); Pierre Hérigone (vol. 5 of the Mathematical Course, bk. 2 of the Theorics); and Pierre Gassendi (both in the Astronomical Institution, bk. 3, and in two Epistles—but especially the second, On motion impressed by a translated mover; at the end of which, however, he subjected his intellect, captive, to the Ecclesiastical decrees). But René Descartes too inclines to this opinion (part 3 of the Principles of Philosophy).

[…continues on p. 291 (PDF 326): the catalogue of Authors who wrote against the moved-Earth hypothesis (Aristotle, Ptolemy, Tycho, Chiaramonti, Scheiner, Froidmont, Inchofer, Kircher, etc.); then Chapter II opens, on the authors who attributed a diurnal whirling to the Earth.]

(printed p. 291 — completing Chapter I with the catalogue of authors against the moved-Earth hypothesis; then Chapter II opens, on the authors who attributed a diurnal whirling to the Earth. It names the ancient proponents (Nicetas, Heraclides, Ecphantus, Seleucus) and takes up whether the view is genuinely Platonic, from the Timaeus.)

[Header: ON THE SYSTEM OF THE MOVED EARTH — 291]

Authors who have written against the Hypothesis of the Moved Earth

[V.] Aristotle (2 On the Heaven, from ch. 12, or from text 71, and again from text 96; and there Simplicius, Philalthæus, the Conimbricenses, Rubius, and very many other Peripatetics); Claudius Ptolemy (bk. 1 of the Almagest, ch. 5 & 7; and there Theon of Alexandria); Regiomontanus (in the Epitome of the Almagest, bk. 1, conclusion 3 & 5); Alfraganus (difference 4); Macrobius (bk. 1 on the Dream of Scipio, ch. 22); Cleomedes (bk. 1 of the Cyclic Theory, ch. 9); Pierre d’Ailly (q. 3 of the Sphere); George Buchanan (bk. 1 of the Sphere explained in verse); Maurolyco (dialogue 1 of the Cosmography, from p. 9); Clavius (on the Sphere, from p. 143 & 195); Barozzi (bk. 1 of the Cosmography, p. 33); Michael Neander (in the Elements of Astronomy, p. 40); Telesio (bk. 2 On the Heaven); Martinengo (in the Great Gloss, from p. 320); Justus Lipsius (bk. 2 of the Physiology, diss. 19); Christoph Scheiner (in the Mathematical Disquisitions, from num. 13); Tycho (in the Epistles, pp. 129, 147, 149, 157, 166, 185, 188; and vol. 1 of the Progymnasmata, pp. 406, 549, 658, 660, 684; and vol. 2, ch. 8); Alessandro Tassoni (bk. 4 of the Diverse [Thoughts], q. 25); Scipione Chiaramonti (in the Antiphilolaus, and in the Defense of the Anti-Tycho against the Author of the two systems, namely Galileo); Melchior Inchofer (in the Tractatus syllepticus); Libert Froidmont (in his Vesta); Jacobus Acarisius, Bishop of Vesta [Vestanus] (in the 4th lecture, On the rest of the Earth and the motion of the Sun); Giulio Cesare Lagalla (On the phenomena in the orb of the Moon, ch. 7); Adam Tanner (On the Heaven, q. 9; and vol. 1 of the Theology, disp. 6, q. 4, d. 3); Bartholomeo Amici (On the Heaven, from p. 284); Antonio Rocco (Philosophical Exercise 6 & 7); Marin Mersenne (on ch. 1 of Genesis); Georgius Polaccus (in the Anti-Copernicus); Athanasius Kircher (On the Magnet, from pp. 539 & 581); David Spinelli (in his Jupiter among the Ethiopians); Juan de Pineda and Jean Lorin (on ch. 1 of Ecclesiastes); Bartholomeo Mastri and Bonaventura Belluto (disp. 1 On the Heaven, q. 2 & q. 4, art. 3); John Punch (disp. 22 of the Physics, q. 9); J. A. Delphinus (On the celestial globes, ch. 18); J. Elephantutius (in the Structure of the Universal Orb). But those who contended at greater length against that hypothesis were Tycho, Chiaramonti, Scheiner, Froidmont, Tassoni, Inchofer, and Polaccus.