The Summary of Physics Restored

242What prevents the earthly globe from being numbered among the stars no less than the Moon? Each body is opaque by its own nature; each borrows light from the Sun; each is solid and reflects the solar rays; each emits spirits and powers; and each hangs suspended in its own heaven or air. There is doubt about movement, but why is the Earth’s movement necessary? Why should it not also stand among so many fixed bodies? Perhaps the Moon too has its own inhabitants. It is beyond belief that such immense masses of globes should remain idle and barren, inhabited by no creatures, and that their movements, actions and labours should serve only the benefit of this lowest and basest globe. For God himself, unable to endure solitude, passed beyond himself through Creation, poured himself wholly into creatures and prescribed to them the law of multiplication. Is it not more consonant with divine goodness and glory to profess a single structure of the whole Universe, like an empire adorned with the varied natures of many Worlds as with provinces or cities? And to profess that those worlds are so many dwellings for innumerable inhabitants of different kinds, all created for the supreme glory of their eternal Maker?