I. Argument, from the Difference of the Up and Down position

[Margin: 1st Argument’s form.]

[I.] From whatever part of the Earth’s circuit the heaven is beheld, all judge that the Heaven is above and the Earth below; but this judgment cannot stand unless they judge the Earth to be at the center of the World. Therefore, from the common judgment of men, the Earth is at the center of the World.

The Major is proved not only by the authority of Sacred Scripture (of which we do not yet treat here), saying — Proverbs 25: The Heaven above and the Earth below; therefore let thy words be few; and Deuteronomy 4: Know therefore this day, and consider it in thy heart, that the Lord himself is God in heaven above and on the earth below, and there is no other; and Isaiah [6]: See below, beneath the earth — but also by the common consensus of very many Wise [men], so that Aristotle said (4th On the Heaven, text 4): For it is absurd not to judge that there is something in the World which is up, and another which is down.

[Translator’s note: in the Proverbs citation Riccioli conflates two verses — “The Heaven above and the Earth below” is Proverbs 25:3 (Vulgate, “Caelum sursum, et terra deorsum”); “therefore let thy words be few” is Ecclesiastes 5:1.]

The Minor is proved, because in whatever part of the terrestrial circuit men judge that which is simply “down” to be that from which the heaven’s circumference appears described, and which seems to be equally distant from the supreme heaven; therefore they judge it to be the center of the World.

[Margin: Response to the argument.]

It is responded by conceding the Minor concerning the center of the World physically and as to appearance, [but] denying [it] concerning the Mathematical center, or [the center] taken according to Astronomical rigor. For the distance of the supreme heaven is so great, compared to the distance of the Earth from the center of the World, that the latter vanishes in relation to the former, on the Copernican hypothesis; and the whole Great Orb, through which the Earth is carried round, is like a point in relation to the supreme sphere.

II. Argument, from the notion of the Lowest

[Margin: 2nd Argument’s form and Response.]

[II.] To the lowest of the mundane bodies is owed the lowest place. But the Earth is the lowest, not only of the elements, but of all bodies, and the center of the World is the lowest place. Therefore, etc.

Kepler (in the Epitome of Copernican Astronomy, bk. 1, p. 101) and Gassendi (Epistle 2, On impressed motion, p. 113) respond by denying both the Major and the Minor: for [they say] that it is not necessary that places correspond to bodies in nobility, nor that the Earth is more ignoble than the Moon, and perhaps than certain other Planets. And indeed the Sun is nobler than Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, and yet is not superior in place. Nevertheless it could [also] be responded that the Earth, taken together with men and the other living things, is not the lowest — and so by denying the Minor. But Gassendi says that nothing in the World is absolutely lowest or supreme, but only comparatively to the situation of an animal, and chiefly of man, whose supreme part is the head, the lowest the feet; hence it is that the part overhanging our zenith is called supreme, and that which lies under [our] feet, lowest; wherefore what is for us the Nadir and the bottom of the heaven is, for our Antipodes, the Zenith and the top of the heaven; nor does that which is the middle continually have the notion of the lowest, as is clear in the navel of the human body.

III. Argument, from the excessive License of placing the Earth anywhere

[Margin: 3rd Argument’s form.]

[III.] If the Earth is not at the center of the Universe, it will be permitted to anyone to place it wherever he wishes in the Universe. The consequent is absurd. Therefore, etc.

[Margin: Response.]

It is responded by denying the Major; for it will not be permitted to place it in such a position from which, [looking] from anywhere, the whole hemisphere of the heaven would not appear to us, to sense. This, however — the phenomenon being saved — will be permitted: for, as Gassendi observes (Epistle 2, On impressed motion, p. 115), the distance of the Fixed [stars] is so great that we judge them all to be on a single surface, with the Planets and with one another; from which he infers that, if we were on the Moon or on the Sun, it would nevertheless be that the heaven would appear to us spherical, and its hemisphere [appear] on every side. And he adds: just as the Ptolemaics admit that the Planets are revolved around the Earth, and yet do not say that their orbs are concentric with the Earth, so it does not follow that, from the fact that we see the heaven turn around the Earth, we therefore know where the center of the heaven is; and [the center] can be distant from the Earth by many terrestrial semidiameters.

IV. Argument, from the situation of the place of Hell, or of the Underworld

[Margin: 4th Argument’s form.]

[IV.] If the Earth is not at the center of the World, the place of the damned would not be “the Underworld,” nor would all who are banished thither “descend” into the Underworld; nay, the place of the damned would be in the heaven. But these [things] are absurd. Therefore, etc.

The Major is proved, because those who, around midday, would be carried toward the center of the Earth, would [thereby] recede from the middle of the world (that is, from the Sun, or from the center of the Great Orb nearest the Sun); wherefore they would rather ascend than descend.

[Margin: Response.]

The Copernicans will respond by absolutely denying the Major; for “the Underworld” [Infernus] is understood as the place of the damned comparatively — both to the surface of the Earth, on which the Wayfarers, men, dwell, and to the supreme region of the Empyrean, in which the Comprehensors [the blessed] dwell — from both of which the damned recede, tending toward Gehenna; nor is it absurd that the damned are in the Planetary heaven, but [not] in the Empyrean heaven; nor [is it necessary] that that [saying] of CHRIST — I saw Satan falling like lightning from heaven — be understood necessarily of the Planetary heaven, but [rather] of the Empyrean heaven. But as for what pertains to the sacred authorities concerning the place of the Earth, it must be treated seriously below.

V. Argument, from the Perversion of the Elementary and Planetary System, and of the number of the Planets

[Margin: 5th Argument’s form.]

[V.] If the Earth is moved through the Great Orb around the Sun, as the Copernicans imagine, the whole system — not only the elementary but also the Planetary — is perverted and disturbed, against the common sense not so much of the crowd as of the wise; and that without any necessity. Therefore the Earth is not moved through the Great Orb, etc.

The Antecedent is proved, because the common sense of the wise is: that all the Elements and elementary bodies are beneath all the heavens, and are distinguished from them no less in place than in nature and condition; that the Moon is the lowest of all the Planets; that the Sun and Moon are the two chief Luminaries and primary Planets; and finally that the Sun is higher than the Moon, but lower than Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars. But the Copernicans place not only the Earth in the heaven and among the Planets, but also the whole Elementary sphere, and with them all the mixed [bodies], animate and inanimate — so that now even beetles and ants are, on their view, as it were secondary little planets; and they put the Moon between the heaven of Mars and of Venus, and make it a secondary Planet, a companion of the Earth; and finally the Sun, cast down from every heaven and expunged from the whole number of the Planets, they place immovable at, or near, the center of the World. And all these things they imagine, compelled by no necessity of the celestial or elementary Phenomena, but only pursuing certain ideas and intelligible congruities.

[Margin: Response to Argument 5.]

The Copernicans respond by conceding the Antecedent as to all its parts, except the denial of necessity — which [denial] is not proved except concerning a necessity taken from the experiment of the senses; but they will say that they are compelled to it by an a priori necessity, from archetypal and Ideal causes, and lest they admit other absurdities in the World-system — such as they reckon the Retrogradation and Station [of the planets], and the twofold inequality of the planets’ motion, and the superfluity of Epicyc[les]…

[…continues on p. 448 (PDF 483) with the catchword “rum” (Epicyclo-rum) — “…of Epicycles,” completing the Copernican response that their system avoids retrogradations, stations, and superfluous epicycles.]

(printed p. 448 — Chapter XXVI closes and Chapter XXVII opens, presenting nine arguments from the celestial phenomena — chiefly eclipses and the evidence of the Sun’s motion — against the annual motion. Argument V’s response concludes that the Copernican necessity is a priori and Platonist rather than Peripatetic. Chapter XXVII gives its authority-roster with a Buchanan poem (which Riccioli notes proves only what Copernicans grant), then states Argument I, from the agreement of all phenomena with a central Earth, and begins Argument II, from the planets’ two apparent motions.)

[Header: BOOK IX. SECTION IV.]

…[the superfluity of Epicycles] and of Librations: or they will say that this very [necessity] is not indeed an absolute necessity, but only [a necessity] from the hypothesis of that which is better in itself, and which seems more worthy of the Maker and Founder, GOD. Wherefore, although the argument thus made has very great force among those accustomed to the Peripatetic mode of Philosophizing, yet among the minds of the Platonic school — which contemplate intelligible Ideas rather than the images of things received through sense — it is not of such weight.

✠ [Chapter XXVI ends here.]