But hoc posito, to grant this their tenent of the earths motion: If the earth move, it is a Planet, & shines to them in the Moon, & to the other Planetary inhabitants, as the Moon and they do to us upon the earth: but shine she doth, as Galilie, Kepler, & others prove,

& then per consequens, the rest of the Planets are inhabited, as well as the Moon, which he grants in his dissertation with Galilies Nuncius Sidereus, that there be Ioviall and Saturn Inhabitants, &c. & those severall Planets have their severall Moons about them, as the earth hath hers, as Galileus hath already evinced by his glasses:

four about Iupiter, two about Saturne (though Sitius the Florentine, Fortunius Licetus, and Iul. Cæsar le Galla cavill at it) yet Kepler, the Emperours Mathematician, confirmes out of his experience, that he saw as much by the same help, & more about Mars, Venus; & the rest they hope to find out, peradventure even amongst the fixed stars, which Brunus and Brutius have already averred.

Then (I say) the earth and they be Planets alike, inhabited alike, moved about the Sun, the common Center of the World alike, and it may be those two green children which Nubrigensis speakes of in his time, that fell from Heaven, came from thence; and that famous stone that fell from heaven in Aristotles time, olymp. 84. anno tertio, ad Capuæ Fluenta, recorded by Laertius and others, or Ancile or buckler in Numa’s time recorded by Festus.

We may likewise inferre with Campanella and Brunus, that which Pythagoras, Aristarchus Samius, Heraclitus, Epicurus, Melissus, Democritus, Leucippus maintained in their ages, there be infinite Worlds, and infinite earths or systemes, in infinito æthere, which Eusebius collects out of their tenents, because infinite stars, and planets like unto this of ours, which some stick not still to maintain and publikely defend, sperabundus expecto innumerabilium mundorum in æternitate perambulationem, &c. (Nic. Hill. Londinensis philos. Epicur.)

For if the Firmament be of such an incomparable bigness, as these Copernicall Giants will have it, infinitum, aut infinito proximum, so vast and full of innumerable stars, as being infinite in extent, one above another, some higher, some lower, some neerer, some farther off, and so far asunder, and those so huge and great:

insomuch, that if the whole sphere of Saturn, and all that is included in it, totum aggregatum (as Fromundus of Lovain in his tract de immobilitate terræ argues) evehatur inter stellas, videri à nobis non poterat, tam immanis est distantia inter tellurem & fixas, sed instar puncti, &c. If our world be small in respect, why may we not suppose a plurality of worlds, those infinite stars visible in the Firmament to be so many Suns, with particular fixt Centers; to have likewise their subordinate planets, as the Sun hath his dancing still round him?

which Cardinall Cusanus, Walkarinus, Brunus, and some others have held, and some still maintain, Animæ Aristotelismo innutritæ, & minutis speculationibus assuetæ, secus forsan, &c. Though they seem close to us, they are infinitely distant, and so per consequens, there are infinite habitable worlds: what hinders? Why should not an infinite cause (as God is) produce infinite effects? as Nic. Hill Democrit. philos. disputes:

Kepler (I confess) will by no means admit of Brunus infinite worlds, or that the fixed stars should be so many Suns, with their compassing planets, yet the said Kepler betwixt iest and earnest in his perspectives, Lunar Geography, & somnio suo, dissertat. cum nunc. syder. seems in part to agree with this, and partly to contradict; For the Planets, he yeelds them to be inhabited, he doubts of the Stars:

and so doth Tycho in his Astronomicall Epistles, out of a consideration of their vastity and greatness, break out into some such like speeches, that he will never beleeve those great and huge bodies were made to no other use than this that we perceive, to illuminate the earth, a point insensible, in respect of the whole.

But who shall dwell in these vast bodies, Earths, Worlds, if they be inhabited? rationall creatures? as Kepler demands, or have they souls to be saved? or do they inhabit a better part of the world than we do? Are we or they Lords of the world? And how are all things made for man? Difficile est nodum hunc expedire, eò quod nondum omnia quæ huc pertinent explorata habemus: ’tis hard to determine: this only he proves, that we are in præcipuo mundi sinu, in the best place, best world, neerest the heart of the Sun.

Thomas Campanella, a Calabrian Monk, in his second book de sensu rerum, cap. 4. subscribes to this of Keplerus; that they are inhabited he certainly supposeth, but with what kind of creatures he cannot say, he labours to prove it by all means: and that there are infinite worlds, having made an Apologie for Galileus, and dedicates this tenet of his to Cardinall Cajetanus.

Others freely speak, mutter, and would perswade the world (as Marinus Marcennus complains) that our modern Divines are too severe and rigid against Mathematicians; ignorant and peevish, in not admitting their true demonstrations and certain observations, that they tyrannize over art, science, and all philosophy, in suppressing their labours (saith Pomponatius) forbidding them to write, to speak a truth, all to maintain their superstition, and for their profits sake.

As for those places of Scripture which oppugne it, they will have spoken ad captum vulgi, and if rightly understood, and favorably interpreted, not at all against it: and as Otho Casman Astrol. cap. 1. part. 1. notes, many great Divines, besides Porphyrius, Proclus, Simplicius, and those Heathen Philosophers, doctrinâ & ætate venerandi, Mosis Genesin mundanam popularis nescio cujus ruditatis, quæ longa absit à verâ Philosophorum eruditione, insimulant:

For Moses makes mention but of two Planets, ☉ and ☾, no 4. elements &c. Reade more in him, in Grossius and Iunius.

But to proceed, these and such like insolent and bold attempts, prodigious Paradoxes, inferences must needs follow, if it once be granted which Rotman, Kepler, Gilbert, Diggeus, Origanus, Galilæus, and others maintain of the earths motion, that it is a Planet, and shines as the Moon doth, which containes in it both land and Sea as the Moon doth: for so they find by their glasses that the Maculæ in facie Lunæ, the brighter parts are Earth, the duskier Sea, which Thales, Plutarch, and Pythagoras formerly taught: and manifestly discern Hills and Dales, and such like concavities, if we may subscribe to and believe Galilies observations.

But to avoid these Paradoxes of the earths motion (which the Church of Rome hath lately condemned as hereticall, as appears by Blancanus and Fromundus writings) our latter Mathematicians have rolled all the stones that may be stirred: and to solve all apparances and objections, have invented new hypotheses, and fabricated new systems of the World, out of their own Dedalean heads.

Fracastorius will have the earth stand still, as before; and to avoid that supposition of Eccentricks and Epicycles, he hath coined 72. Homocentricks, to solve all apparances. Nicholas Ramerus will have the earth the Center of the World, but moveable; and the eighth sphere immoveable, the five upper Planets to move above the Sun, the Sun and Moon about the earth.

Of which Orbes, Tycho Brahe puts the earth the Center immoveable, the stars immoveable, the rest with Ramerus, the Planets without Orbes to wander in the Aire, keep time and distance, true motion, according to that vertue which God hath given them.