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 - Of the Revolution of the Planets about Their Own Axis

Chapter 15