[Margin: Nicetas’s opinion.]

[I.] That diurnal conversion, completable in 24 hours—by which all the stars, whether non-wandering or even wandering, seem to be rolled down from the East through the Meridian into the West, and thence to return to the East through the Midnight [lower meridian]—appears indeed in the stars, but in reality comes about through the motion of our Earth, carried around toward the East about its own center and axis, and going around to meet the stars themselves [which seem to be] circling [the opposite way]: this the most ancient Authors of old asserted, about whom Copernicus (bk. 1, ch. 5) speaks thus: “Of this opinion, indeed, were Heraclides and Ecphantus the Pythagoreans, and Nicetas of Syracuse (in Cicero), turning the earth in the middle of the world. For they thought that the stars set by the interposition of the earth, and rise by its withdrawal.” But he [Copernicus] does not designate the sources whence he derived these [things]; but they are, namely, Cicero (2 of the Academic Questions), who, when he had said: “Do you not also say that there is, opposite to us, on the contrary side, a land [people] who stand with opposed footprints against our footprints, whom you call Antipodes? Why are you more angry at me, who do not spurn these [things], than at those who, when they hear [them], judge you to be senseless?”—immediately subjoined: “Nicetas of Syracuse, as Theophrastus says, thinks that the heaven, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars—in short, all things above—stand still; nor that anything in the world is moved except the earth, which, when it whirls and twists itself around [its] axis with the highest velocity, brings about all the same [appearances] as would be produced if, the earth standing still, the heaven were moved.” And some think that Plato too says this in the Timaeus, but a little more obscurely. But about Plato we shall inquire a little below. Again, the same Cicero (1 of the Tusculans): “Nicetas of Syracuse first made the Earth move.” But in bk. 3 of the Opinions of the Philosophers [Plutarch’s Placita], ch. 13, Plutarch relates these [things]: “Heraclides Ponticus and Ecphantus the Pythagorean do indeed set the earth in motion—yet by no means progressively, but, like a wheel resting on its own axle, [they hold it] to be turned from West to East around it. Democritus [held that the earth] was, from the very beginning, much-wandering, both because it was small and because it was light; but, as time proceeded, [being] condensed, it stood balanced by its own mass.” And (ch. 17): “Seleucus the Mathematician, also moving the earth, says that the revolution of the Moon goes to meet its [the earth’s] whirling and motion; by which impetus the breath [air], collecting itself between these bodies and rushing into the Atlantic, probably stirs up the seas.” That Plato was once of the same opinion, we have already heard above from Cicero; but a much more ancient witness, Aristotle, seems to have said the same (bk. 2 On the Heaven, text 75): “But some,” he says, “say that it”—namely the Earth—“lies in the center, yet is turned, and is moved about the ever-immovable pole, just as is written in the Timaeus.” And so about Plato think Rheticus (in his First Narration), Gassendi (Epistle 2, On impressed motion), and others.

[Margin: The genuine opinion of Timaeus and Plato.]

[II.] To me, however, reading through Plato’s Timaeus, it could never be persuaded that this opinion about the whirling of the earth was Platonic—since Plato speaks under the person of Timaeus: for in that dialogue the first [parts] of discoursing about the generation of the World and of its parts are entrusted to Timaeus by Critias, with Socrates agreeing. For Critias had said: “Consider, Socrates, whether we have suitably arranged the mutual banquet for you: it has seemed [good] to us that Timaeus—as being the most skilled of us all in Astronomy, and most versed in knowing the nature of things—should discourse first, in such a way that, beginning from the generation of the World, he may come down to the nature of the human race, etc.” And after a few [words] Socrates replies: “You seem to me to have prepared a copious and splendid table of disputation: it is therefore your office, O Timaeus, etc.” Timaeus, therefore, beginning from the generation of the World, and expounding the eight intervals of the spheres according to harmonic proportions, acknowledges two motions in the heaven: one exterior, from East to West, which he attributes to the outermost sphere and not to the Earth; the other interior, from West to East, which he ascribes to the seven spheres of the Planets. And his words about the heaven are these: “Of the circles, the one he made exterior, the other interior. The exterior motion indeed he named [the motion] of the Same nature, but the interior [the motion] of the Other; and that which was akin to itself, of the Same nature, he bent toward the side, to the right part—namely toward the West; but that which [was] of the Other, [he bent] through the diameter to the left; but he gave the primacy to the agitation which was similar and of the Same nature. That one he never left alone, undivided—that is, simple and uniform. But the interior, when he had divided it six times, and had made seven unequal orbs by double and triple intervals (since they are three each—that is, endowed with three motions: lengthwise to the right, lengthwise to the left, and breadthwise toward the poles of the world)—he ordered the orbs to accomplish [their courses] by mutually contrary courses of each; and, of the seven inferior [orbs], three indeed by an equal velocity—namely the Sun, Mercury, Venus—but four to be turned, both with respect to themselves and to the rest, by a velocity unequal indeed, yet a fitting one.” And, a few [words] being interposed, he pursues the same motions, saying: “But when God had made seven bodies of stars of this kind, he applied [them] to just as many orbs, which are turned by the circuit of the Other and diverse nature. The Moon he placed in the first circuit above the earth, in the second the Sun. Then he fixed the globe of Lucifer [Venus], and the star sacred (as it is said) to Mercury, to circles equal [to the Sun] in velocity, but contrary to it in power; whereby it happens that these stars—the Sun, Lucifer, and Mercury—overtake one another and are by turns overtaken by each other. But the orders and progressions and accounts of the other stars, if anyone should wish to run through [them] entirely, the labor will be more than [the gain] which would be taken for the sake of the work.” And soon, expounding how the Planets, by [their] oblique motion through the Zodiac, seem to be carried by a motion contrary to the eighth sphere, he says: “That they held this tenor—namely, that, according to the oblique agitation of the Other and diverse nature, subordinated to the agitation which is uniform and of the Same nature, the [orbs]—

[…continues on p. 292 (PDF 327): “…orbs [revolve]…” — the rest of Plato’s Timaeus passage, then Riccioli’s argument that the diurnal motion is there assigned to the heaven (the circle of the “Same”), not to the Earth — so the rotating-Earth view is not genuinely Platonic.]

(printed p. 292 — continuing Chapter II on the diurnal whirling: Riccioli completes the Timaeus World-soul passage and argues that Plato assigns the diurnal motion to the eighth sphere, not the Earth, so the rotating-Earth view is not genuinely Platonic. The chapter then turns to the modern diurnal-rotation authors, Cusanus and Copernicus, and to Gilbert and his followers.)

[Header: BOOK IX. SECTION IV. — 292]

—those orbs should traverse partly a wider, partly a narrower circle; and that those of a smaller [circle] should revolve more swiftly, those of a greater more slowly. But according to that common and uniform motion [the motion of the “Same”], the [orbs] which most swiftly run their course seem to comprehend [overtake the others], while [those overtaken] seem to be comprehended by the slower. That upper whirling, revolving all their circles by a varied circuit—because these [orbs] are agitated by two contrary motions at once—declared that [orb] which recedes least from itself (which is the swiftest) to be the nearest: namely Saturn’s. And that there might be some most certain measure of their swiftness and slowness, and that out of all the eight motions a choral dance might come forth into the light, God kindled a most brilliant light in the second circle from the earth, which we now call the Sun.” Could Timaeus—and therefore Plato—have declared his mind to us in clearer words, as to that which we seek? namely, whether the apparent motion of the Prime Mobile is accomplished by the whirling of the earth, the lowest globe; or rather by the eighth circle, the outermost of all? By no means [the former], say I: but neither in the Epinomis does Plato acknowledge in the eighth sphere a proper motion, but only the common one toward the West; wherefore, if he had ascribed this motion to the Earth, he would not have described to us a simple motion, and one of the same nature, in the eighth sphere, nor would he have called the motion of the Planets contrary to it.

[Margin: The Cube Timaeus assigns to the Earth.]

But why [say] more? Does not Timaeus the same—that is, Plato speaking in the person of Timaeus—when he had undertaken [the task] of distributing the five regular bodies to the heaven and the elements, say in most express words: “Let us assign the cubic shape to the Earth: for of all four [elements] the earth is the most immovable, and the most compact of all bodily things; and such a one it necessarily had to be made, which possesses the firmest and safest bases.” And therefore Plutarch (bk. 2 of the Placita, ch. 6), reporting Pythagoras’s opinion about assigning the Cube to the Earth, said: “Plato in all these [things] pythagorizes.” Whence perhaps flowed that rite, that the cube should be the symbol of the immovable earth, and that the priests, sitting, should sacrifice to Ops—that is, to the resting earth. Wherefore Marsilio Ficino, most skilled indeed in the Platonic doctrines, in his Compendium on the Timaeus, ch. 25, established that the Earth is immovable according to [Plato’s] own opinion. But whence, you will ask, [comes] that suspicion of a motion of the earth asserted by Timaeus—or, as Cicero says, somewhat obscurely indicated? I would believe [it comes] from those words: “But our nourisher the Earth, bound about the pole extended through the universe, He willed to be the maker [effectrix] of day and night, and the guardian, and indeed the first and most ancient of all the gods, etc. But the dances of these gods, and the encounters among themselves, etc.” But by these last words he does not place the earth among the moving gods—which a little after he establishes to sit upon the cube, unmoved—but [places there] the souls and intelligences of the celestial bodies: nor on that account does he call it the maker of day and night because by its own conversion it goes to meet the Sun, but because, casting by its opacity a shadow into the part opposite to the Sun, it makes night in that hemisphere of its own. And perhaps Aristotle, in that text 75 of the second [book] On the Heaven, does not adduce Timaeus for the motion of the earth, but for the immobility of the axis and pole, about which others said it was moved. It therefore still remains in doubt what Cicero attributes to Timaeus; and it is far more likely that neither Timaeus nor Plato, at least in this place, gave any motion to the Earth; and therefore Laërtius is to be corrected, who (bk. 3, in the Life of Plato), from the aforesaid passage of Timaeus badly understood, says concerning Plato’s opinion: “That the Earth is the most ancient of all [the gods] that are in the heaven. And that it was founded, that it might vary the times and changes of day and night: [and] that, since it is in the middle, it is moved about the middle.”

[Margin: Nicolaus Cusanus’s opinion.]

[III.] Yet besides the ancients, not a few of the more recent [authors] attributed to the Earth this single motion—namely not τῆς φορᾶς [tēs phoras], that is, of translation [progressive transport], but τῆς δινήσεως [tēs dinēseōs], that is, of whirling or diurnal vertigo. Nicolaus Cusanus the Cardinal (bk. 2 of the Learned Ignorance, ch. 11), where he says: “The earth, therefore, which cannot be the center, cannot lack all motion”; and again: “From these [things] it is indeed manifest that the earth is moved: and since we have experienced, from the motion of a Comet, that the elements of air and fire are moved, and [that] the Moon [moves] less from East to West than Mercury or Venus, or the Sun, and so by degrees: hence the earth itself is moved still less than all [of them].” And a few [words] being interposed: “Although the earth is, as it were, a star nearer to the central pole, yet it is moved, and does not describe the least circle in [its] motion.” And (ch. 12): “To these things now said the ancients did not attain, because they were deficient in learned ignorance. Now it is manifest to us that this earth is in truth moved, although this does not appear to us, since we do not apprehend motion except by a certain comparison to a Fixed [point]; for if someone were ignorant that the water flows, and did not see the banks, existing in a ship in the middle of the water, how would he apprehend the ship to be moved? And on account of this, since it always seems to anyone—whether he himself be on the earth, or on the Sun, or on another star—that he himself is in a center, as it were immovable, and that all other things are moved: he certainly, existing in the Sun, would always constitute for himself other and other poles; and others on the earth, and others on the Moon and on Mars, and so of the rest. Whence the machine of the world will be, as it were, having its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere; since the circumference and center is GOD, who is everywhere and nowhere.”

[Margin: The same author’s sounder opinion.]

Yet this author seems, in these same places, to attribute a certain motion of translation to the Earth; but elsewhere—either forgetful of himself, or repugnant to himself, or having felt better things—in bk. 7 of the Exercitations, in the sermon which begins “We are debtors,” where he says: “For prayer is more powerful than all creatures: for the Angels or Intelligences move the orb, the Sun, the stars; but prayer [is] more powerful, because it impedes the motion; just as the prayer of Joshua made the Sun stand still.” From this, however, he seems to have taken the similitude of those existing in a ship; and thence [took] the argument for

[Margin: Copernicus’s opinion.]

the diurnal motion of the earth Copernicus, who, when in bk. 1, ch. 5 he had said: “Although it is generally agreed among authors that the earth rests in the middle of the world, so that they think it inconceivable, and even ridiculous, to feel the contrary. Yet if we consider the matter more attentively, this question will appear not yet settled, and therefore by no means to be despised. For every change which is seen [to be] according to place is either on account of the motion of the thing observed, or of the observer, or certainly an unequal change of both: for among [things] moved equally toward the same [things], no motion is perceived—between the thing seen, I mean, and the seer. But the Earth is [the place] whence that celestial circuit is beheld, and reproduced to our sight: if, therefore, some motion be assigned to the earth, it will appear in all the [things] which are outside, but toward the opposite part, as though they were passing by—such as is, in the first place, the daily revolution.” Afterward (ch. 8), the argument from the spherical figure of the earth—most apt for motion—he glides over entirely into Niceta’s opinion, and says: “Whether, therefore, the world be finite or infinite, let us leave [that] to the disputation of the Natural Philosophers: holding this for certain, that the earth, enclosed by [its] poles, is bounded by a globose surface. Why, then, do we still hesitate to concede to it the mobility congruent by nature to its [own] form, rather than that the whole world should glide, whose end is unknown and cannot be known? and [why do we not] confess that of the daily revolution itself there is in the heaven an appearance, and in the earth a truth?” Not therefore by doubting only, or by speaking hypothetically, but absolutely,

[Margin: He establishes the motion of the Earth not hypothetically only, but absolutely.]

Copernicus asserted this motion of the earth, and tried to confirm it by many arguments throughout that whole ch. 8—which arguments, indeed, we shall expound and dissolve below. And so he concludes that chapter, saying: “You see, therefore, that from all these [things] the mobility of the earth is more probable than its rest, especially in the daily revolution, as being most proper to the earth.”

[IV.] After Copernicus, as to the diurnal motion of the earth, there subscribed: William Gilbert, the London Physician, in his new Physiology on the Magnet and magnetic bodies (bk. 6, ch. 3), where, having praised Heraclides Ponticus, Ecphantus, Niceta, Aristarchus, Philolaus, and Copernicus, he says: “It is therefore an ancient opinion, brought down from ancient times, but now augmented by great cogitations, that the earth is wholly carried around by a daily revolution in the space of 24 hours”; and below he concludes: “Wherefore we are carried by the diurnal rotation of the earth (by a more fitting motion, namely); and just as a skiff is moved upon the waters, so we are turned about together with the earth, and yet we seem to ourselves to stand still and to rest.” Which motion he then contends comes about from the magnetic virtue of the earth (ch. 4); and he dissolves, or strives to dissolve, the reasons of those denying the earth’s motion (ch. 5); and the cause of the determinate time of 24 hours, in which this revolution is accomplished (ch. 6), he ascribes to the magnetic confederation of the Earth and the Moon—these globes being promoted [in motion] by the Sun according to the proportion of their orbs.

[Margin: Origanus, Longomontanus, Argolus — asserters of the Earth’s diurnal motion.]

Finally, Copernicus and Gilbert in this were followed by David Origanus (vol. 1 of the Ephemerides, in the dedicatory Epistle); Christian Severin Longomontanus (in the Danish Astronomy, bk. 1 of the Theorics, ch. 1 & 4); Andreas Argolus (in the Pandosion sphæricum, ch. 3). Not Tycho, however, whatever some have feigned—whom we have nevertheless sufficiently refuted (sect. 3, ch. 8, num. 4). But besides these, all who [attributed] the an-

[…continues on p. 293 (PDF 328): “…annual [motion] to the Earth granted also the diurnal” — completing Chapter II; then Chapter III opens, “On the Authors who, besides the Diurnal Whirling, ascribed also the Annual translation to the Earth; where, in passing, [it is asked] whether Vesta was Earth or Fire” (Ecphantus, Philolaus, Aristarchus, the Pythagorean central fire, Archimedes’ Sand-Reckoner, etc.).]

(printed p. 293 — completing Chapter II (Seneca, though he raised the doubt, upheld the earth’s stability); then Chapter III opens, on the authors who added the annual translation to the diurnal whirling. It surveys the ancient heliocentrists — Philolaus, the Pythagorean central fire and counter-earth, Aristarchus — and begins an excursus on whether Vesta was Earth or Fire.)

[Header: ON THE SYSTEM OF THE MOVED EARTH — 293]

—nual [motion] to the Earth granted also the diurnal in addition—whom we shall review in the following chapter. Although Seneca, on the occasion taken from the diurnal motion of Comets, raised a doubt about this motion of the earth especially (as is clear from his words, adduced in this section at the beginning of the first chapter), the same [Seneca] nevertheless, in the book On Providence, ch. 1, following the sound and common opinion, said:

[Margin: Seneca an asserter of the earth’s stability.]

“This order of [things] is not [the order] of erring matter, nor do [the things] that have rashly come together hang [together] by such great art, that the heaviest weight of the lands should sit unmoved, and behold about itself the flight of the hastening heaven.”