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CHAPTER
XIV
OF THE
COPERNICAN SYSTEM; THE MOTION OF THE EARTH ABOUT THE SUN; AND
THE ANTIPODES
1. THERE are other truths taught by the ancients long ago,
at last adopted by the moderns; after having undergone a not uncommon
fate, that of being rejected and condemned with disdain. That
the earth moves about the sun, and that there are antipodes, are
particulars known long ago, though received almost every where
at first with contempt or ridicule; nay, they have sometimes proved
dangerous to those who held them; yet both these doctrines are
now so well established, that they meet with general approbation.
And thus, for two ages past, have we gone on to re-introduce the
most celebrated of the ancient opinions; still affecting, however,
not to know that we are in any manner indebted to those who first
held them.
2. The most reasonable in itself, and what agrees best
with the most accurate observations, is that system of the world
proposed by Copernicus, who places the sun in the centre, the
fixed stars at the circumference, and the earth and other planets
in the intervening space; and who ascribes to the earth not only
a diurnal motion around its axis, but an annual round the sun.
This system is entirely simple, and best explains all the appearances
of the planets, and their situations, whether processional, stationary,
or retrograde; but it is matter of surprise, how a system so fully
and distinctly inculcated by the ancients, should derive its name
from a modern philosopher. Pythagoras, Philolaus, Nicetas of
Syracuse, Plato, Aristarchus, and many others among the ancients,
have in a thousand places expressed this opinion; and Diogenes
Laertius, Plutarch, and Stobceus, have with great precision transmitted
to us their ideas. And that this system was no sooner universally
received, ought entirely to be ascribed to the force of prejudice;
which, deciding every thing by appearances, prefers sense to reason,
and abandons whatever is not conformable to the judgment of the
former.
3. Pythagoras thought the earth was a moveable body, ‘and
so far from being the centre of the world, performed its revolutions
around the region of fire, that is the sun, and thereby formed
day and night. It is said he obtained this knowledge among the
Egyptians, who represented the sun emblematically by a beetle,
because that insect keeps itself six months under ground, and
six above; or, rather because having formed its dung into a ball,
it afterward lays itself on its back, and, by means of its feet,
whirls that ball round in a circle.
4.
Some impute this opinion to Philolaus, the disciple of Pythagoras;
but it is evident, he had the merit only of being the publisher
of it, and several other opinions belonging to that school; for
Eusebius expressly affirms, that he was the first who put Pythagoras’
system into writing. Philolaus added, that the earth moved in
an oblique circle; by which no doubt, he meant the zodiac.
5. Aristarchus,
of Samoa, who lived about three centuries before Jesus Christ,
was one of the principal defenders of the doctrine of the earth’s
motion. Archimedes, in his book, “de Arenario,” informs
us, “that Aristarchus, writing on this subject against some
of the philosophers of his own age, placed the sun immoveable
in the centre of an orbit, described by the earth in its circuit.
And Sextus Empiricus, also cites him as one of the principal supporters
of this opinion. There is, also, a passage in Plutarch, whereby
it appears, that Clean-thes accused Aristarchus of impiety, in
troubling the repose of Vesta, and all the Larian gods; when,
in giving an account of the phenomena of the planets in their
courses, he taught that heaven, or the firmament of the fixed
stars, was immoveable: and that the earth moved in an oblique
circle, revolving at the same time around its own axis.
6. Theophrastus,
as quoted by Plutarch, says, in his history of astronomy, which
bath not reached our times, “that Plato when, advanced in
years, gave up the error he had been in, of making the sun turn
round the earth ; and lamented, that he had not placed it in the
centre; but put the earth there, contrary to the order of nature.
Nor is at all strange, that Plato should reassume an opinion which
he bad early imbibed in the schools of the two celebrated Pythagoreans,
Archytas of Tarentum, and Timeus the Locrian; as we see in St.
Jerome’s christian apology against Rufinus: and in Cicero,
we see that Heraclides of Pontus, who was a Pythagorean, taught
the same doctrine.
7.
That the earth is round and inhabited on all sides, and of course
that they are antipodes, or those whose feet are directly opposite
to ours, is one of the most ancient doctrines inculcated by philosophy.
Diogenes Laertius says, that Plato was the first, who called the
inhabitants of the earth opposite to us, antipodes. He does not
mean, that Plato was the first who taught this opinion, but only
the first who made use of the term antipodes; for, in another
place, he mentions Pythagoras as the first who taught it. There
is also a passage in Plutarch, whereby it appears, that it was
a point of controversy in his time : and Lucretius and Pliny,
who oppose this notion, as well as St. Augustine, all serve as
witnesses that it must have prevailed in their time.
8. I
make no mention of the condemnation of bishop Virgilius by pope
Zachary, for having taught this doctrine, because it is a mistake:
the pope, in that letter of his to St. Boniface, speaks only of
those who maintained, that there was another world besides this
of ours, another sun, another moon, and so on.
9. As
to the proofs which the ancients brought of the sphericity of
the earth, they were the very same that the moderns make use of
Pliny on this subject observes, that the land which retires out
of sight to persons on the deck of a ship, appears still view
to those who are upon the mast ; and thence concludes that the
earth is round Aristotle drew this consequence not only from the
shadow of the earth’s being circular on the disk of the moon
in the time of an eclipse, but also from this circumstance, that
in travelling south we discover other stars, and that those which
we saw before, whether is the zenith, or elsewhere, change their
situation with respect to us.
Chapter 15
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