For A Traveler Going From Any Place

In First Place We Must Observe That The Universe Is Spherical. This Is Either Because That Figure Is The Most Perfect, As Not Being Articulated, But Whole And Complete In Itself; Or Because It Is The Most Capacious And Therefore Best Suited For That Which Is To Contain And Preserve All Things.

So, Influenced By These Advisors And This Hope, I Have At Length Allowed My Friends To Publish The Work, As They Had Long Besought Me To Do.

Of All Things Visible, The Highest Is The Heaven Of The Fixed Stars.

The Two Revolutions, I Mean The Annual Revolutions Of The Declination And Of The Centre Of The Earth, Are Not Completely Equal; That Is The Return Of The Declination To Its Original Value Is Slightly Ahead Of The Period Of The Centre. Hence It Necessarily Follows That The Equinoxes And Solstices Seem To Anticipate Their Timing, Not Because The Sphere Of The Fixed Stars Moves To The East, But Rather The Equatorial Circle Moves To The West, Being At An Angle To The Plane Of The Ecliptic In Proportion To The Declination Of The Axis Of The Terrestrial Globe.

If There Be Some Who, Though Ignorant Of All Mathematics . . . Dare To Reprove This Work, Because Of Some Passage Of Scripture, Which They Have Miserably Warped To Their Purpose, I Regard Them Not, And Even Despise Their Rash Judgement.