Tycho hath fained I know not how many subdivisions of Epicycles in Epicycles, &c. to calculate and express the Moons motion: But when all is done, as a supposition, and no otherwise; not (as he holds) hard, impenetrable, subtile, transparent, &c. or making musick, as Pythagoras maintained of old, and Robert Constantine of late, but still quiet, liquid, open, &c.

If the Heavens then be penetrable, as these men deliver, and no lets, it were not amiss in this aereall progress, to make wings, and fly up, which that Turk in Busbequius, made his fellow-Citizens in Constantinople beleeve he would perform: & some new-fangled wits, me thinks, should some time or other finde out: or if that may not be, yet with a Galilies glass, or Icaromenippus wings in Lucian, command the Spheres and Heavens, and see what is done amongst them.

Whether there be generation and corruption, as some think, by reason of æthereall Comets, that in Cassiopea 1572. that in Cygno 1600. that in Sagittarius 1604. and many like, which by no means Iul. Cæsar la Galla, that Italian Philosopher, in his physicall disputation with Galileus de phænomenis in orbe Lunæ, cap. 9. will admit: or that they were created ab initio, and shew themselves at set times: and as Helisæus Ræslin contends, have Poles, Axeltrees, Circles of their own, and regular motions.

For non pereunt, sed minuuntur & disparent, Blancanus holds, they come & go by fits, casting their tailes still from the Sun: some of them, as a burning glass projects the Sun beams from it; though not alwaies neither: for sometimes a Comet casts his taile from Venus, as Ticho observes. And as Helisæus Ræslin of some others, from the Moon, with little Stars about them, ad stuporem Astronomorum; cum multis aliis in cælo miraculis, all which argue, with those Medicean, Austrian, & Burbonian Stars, that the Heaven of the Planets is indistinct, pure, & open, in which the Planets move certis legibus ac metis.

Examine likewise, An cælum sit coloratum? Whether the Stars be of that bigness, distance, as Astronomers relate, so many in number, 1026. or 1725. as I. Bayerus; or as some Rabbins 29000. Myriades; or as Galilee discovers by his glasses, infinite, & that via lactea, a confused light of small Stars, like so many nailes in a door: or all in a row, like those 12000. Isles of the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean? whether the least visible Star in the eighth Sphere be 18. times bigger than the earth; and as Ticho calculates, 14000. semidiameters distant from it?

Whether they be thicker parts of the Orbes, as Aristotle delivers: or so many habitable Worlds, as Democritus? whether they have light of their own, or from the Sun, or give light round, as Patritius discourseth? An æquè distent à centro mundi? Whether light be of their essence, & that light be a substance or an accident? whether they be hot by themselves, or by accident cause heat? whether there be such a precession of the Æquinoxes, as Copernicus holds, or that the eighth Sphere move?

An benè philosophentur, R. Bacon, & I. Dee, Aphorism. de multiplicatione specierum? Whether there be any such Images ascending with each degree of the Zodiack in the East, as Aliacensis feignes? An aqua super cælum? as Patritius & the Schoolmen will, a Crystalline watry heaven, which is certainly to be understood of that in the middle Region: for otherwise, if at Noahs floud the water came from thence, it must be above an hundred yeeres falling down to us, as some calculate.

Besides, An terra sit animata? which some so confidently believe, with Orpheus, Hermes, Averroes, from which all other souls of men, beasts, divels, plants, fishes, &c. are derived, and into which again, after some revolutions, as Plato in his Timæus, Plotinus in his Enneades more largely discusse, they return. (See Chalcidius and Benius, Plato’s Commentators) as all philosophicall matter in materiam primam. Keplerus, Patritius, and some other Neotericks have in part revived this opinion. And that every Star in heaven hath a soul, angel, or intelligence to animate or move it, &c.

Or to omit all smaller controversies, as matters of less moment, and examine that main paradox, of the Earths motion, now so much in question: Aristarchus Samius, Pythagoras maintained it of old, Democritus, and many of their Schollers, Didacus Astunica, Anthony Foscarinus, a Carmelite, and some other Commentators will have Iob to insinuate as much, cap. 9. ver. 4. Qui commovet terram de loco suo, &c. and that this one place of Scripture makes more for the Earths motion, than all the other prove against it; whom Pineda confutes, most contradict.

Howsoever, it is revived since by Copernicus, not as a truth, but a supposition, as he confesseth himself in the Preface to Pope Nicholas, but now maintained in good earnest by Calcagninus, Telesius, Kepler, Rotman, Gilbert, Digges, Galileus, Campanella, and especially by Lansbergius, naturæ, rationi, & veritati consentaneum, by Origanus, and some others of his followers.

For if the Earth be the Center of the World, stand still, and the Heavens move, as the most received opinion is, which they call inordinatam cœli dispositionem, though stiffly maintained by Tycho, Ptolomæus, and their adherents, quis ille furor? &c. what fury is that, saith Dr Gilbert, satis animosè, as Cabeus notes, that shall drive the Heavens about with such incomprehensible celerity in 24. houres, when as every point of the Firmament, and in the Æquator, must needs move (so Clavius calculates) 176660. in one 246th part of an houre:

and an arrow out of a bow must goe seven times about the earth, whilest a man can say an Ave Maria, if it keep the same space, or compass the earth 1884. times in an houre, which is supra humanam cogitationem, beyond humane conceit: Ocyor & jaculo, & ventos, æquante sagitta. A man could not ride so much ground, going 40. miles a day, in 2904. yeeres, as the Firmament goes in 24. houres; or so much in 203. yeeres, as the said Firmament in one minute; quod incredibile videtur:

And the Pole star, which to our thinking scarce moveth out of his place, goeth a bigger circuit than the Sun, whose Diameter is much larger than the Diameter of the Heaven of the Sun, and 20000. Semidiameters of the earth from us, with the rest of the fixed stars, as Tycho proves.

To avoid therefore the impossibilities, they ascribe a triple motion to the earth, the Sun immoveable in the Center of the whole world, the earth Center of the Moon, alone, above ♀ and ☿, beneath ♄, ♃, ♂, (or as Origanus and others will, one single motion to the earth, still placed in the Center of the world, which is more probable) a single motion to the Firmament, which moves in 30. or 26. thousand yeeres; and so of the Planets, Saturne in 30. yeeres absolves his sole and proper motion, Iupiter in 12. Mars in 3. &c. and so solve all apparances better than any way whatsoever:

Calculate all motions, be they in longum or latum, direct, stationary, retrograde, ascent or descent, without Epicycles, intricate Eccentricks, &c. rectius commodiusque per unicum motum terræ, saith Lansbergius, much more certain than by those Alphonsine, or any such tables, which are grounded from those other suppositions.

And ’tis true they say, according to optick principles, the visible apparances of the Planets do so indeed answer to their magnitudes & orbs, & come neerest to Mathematicall observations, & precedent calculations, there is no repugnancy to physicall axiomes, because no penetration of orbes: but then between the sphere of Saturne and the Firmament, there is such an incredible and vast space or distance (7000000. semidiameters of the earth, as Tycho calculates) void of stars:

And besides, they do so inhance the bigness of the stars, enlarge their circuit, to salve those ordinary objections of Parallaxes & Retrogradations of the fixed stars, that alteration of the Poles, elevation in severall places or latitude of Cities here on earth (for, say they, if a mans eye were in the Firmament, he should not at all discern that great annuall motion of the earth, but it would still appear punctum indivisibile, & seem to be fixed in one place, of the same bigness) that it is quite opposite to reason, to naturall philosophy, & all out as absurd as disproportiall (so some will) as prodigious, as that of the Suns swift motion of Heavens.