Moreover, Since The Sun Remains Stationary, Whatever

Pouring Forth Its Seas Everywhere, Then, The Ocean Envelops The Earth And Fills Its Deeper Chasms.

For When A Ship Is Floating Calmly Along, The Sailors See Its Motion Mirrored In Everything Outside, While On The Other Hand They Suppose That They Are Stationary, Together With Everything On Board. In The Same Way, The Motion Of The Earth Can Unquestionably Produce The Impression That The Entire Universe Is Rotating.

Those Who Know That The Consensus Of Many Centuries Has Sanctioned The Conception That The Earth Remains At Rest In The Middle Of The Heavens As Its Center, Would, I Reflected, Regard It As An Insane Pronouncement If I Made The Opposite Assertion That The Earth Moves.

When, Therefore, I Had Long Considered This Uncertainty Of Traditional Mathematics, It Began To Weary Me That No More Definite Explanation Of The Movement Of The World-machine Established In Our Behalf By The Best And Most Systematic Builder Of All, Existed Among The Philosophers Who Had Studied So Exactly In Other Respects The Minutest Details In Regard To The Sphere.

We Are Taught All This [the Motion Of The Earth On Its Axis And Around The Sun] By The Order Of Succession, In Which Those Phenomena (various Planetary Happenings) Follow Each Other, And By The Harmony Of The World, If We Will Only, As The Saying Goes, Look At The Matter With Both Eyes.