Nations Are Not Ruined By One Act

For A Traveler Going From Any Place Toward The North, That Pole Of The Daily Rotation Gradually Climbs Higher, While The Opposite Pole Drops Down An Equal Amount.

Yet The Widespread Planetary Theories, Advanced By Ptolemy And Most Other Astronomers, Although Consistent With The Numerical Data, Seemed Likewise To Present No Small Difficulty. For These Theories Were Not Adequate Unless They Also Conceived Certain Equalizing Circles, Which Made The Planet Appear To Move At All Times With Uniform Velocity Neither On Its Deferent Sphere Nor About Its Own Epicycle's Center.

Therefore, When I Considered This Carefully, The Contempt Which I Had To Fear Because Of The Novelty And Apparent Absurdity Of My View, Nearly Induced Me To Abandon Utterly The Work I Had Begun.

So If The Worth Of The Arts Were Measured By The Matter With Which They Deal, This Art-which Some Call Astronomy, Others Astrology, And Many Of The Ancients The Consummation Of Mathematics-would Be By Far The Most Outstanding. This Art Which Is As It Were The Head Of All The Liberal Arts And The One Most Worthy Of A Free Man Leans Upon Nearly All The Other Branches Of Mathe Matics. Arithmetic, Geometry, Optics, Geodesy, Mechanics, And Whatever Others, All Offer Themselves In Its Service.

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