Vitellio & Reinoldus affirme the spots to be the thicker parts of the Moone,⁸ into which the Sunne cannot infuse much light; and this (say they) is the reason why in the Sunnes eclipses the spots and brighter parts are still in som measure distinguished, because the Sun beames are not able so well to penetrate through those thicker, as they may through the thinner parts of that Planet. Of this opinion also was Caesar la Galla, whose words are these; The Moone doth there appeare clearest, where she is transpicuous, not onely through the superficies,⁹ but the substance also, and there shee seemes spotted, where her body is most opacous. The ground of this his assertion was, because hee thought the Moone did receive and bestow her light by illumination onely, and not at all by reflexion, but this, together with the supposed penetration of the Sun-beames, and the perspicuity of the Moones body I have above answered and refuted.

The more common and generall opinion is, that the spots are the thinner parts of the Moone,¹⁰ which are lesse able to reflect the beames that they receive from the Sunne, and this is most aggreeable to reason; for if the starres are therefore brightest,¹¹ because they are thicker and more solid than their orbes, then it will follow, that those parts of the Moone which have lesse light, have also lesse thicknesse. It was the providence of nature (say some) that so contrived that planet to have these spots within it, for since that is neerest to those lower bodies which are so full of deformity, ‘tis requisite that it should in some measure agree with them, and as in this inferiour world, the higher bodies are the most compleat, so also in the heavens perfection is ascended unto by degrees, and the Moone being the lowest,¹² must be the least pure, and therefore Philo the Jew interpreting Iacobs dreame concerning the ladder, doth in an allegory shew, how that in the fabricke of the world, all things grow perfecter as they grow higher, and this is the reason (saith he) why the Moone doth not consist of any pure simple matter, but is mixed with aire, which shewes so darkely within her body.

But this cannot be a sufficient reason; for though it were true that nature did frame every thing perfecter as it was higher, yet is it as true that nature frames every thing fully perfect for that office to which shee intends it. Now, had she intended the Moone meerely to reflect the Sunne-beames and give light, the spots then had not so much argued her providence, as her unskilfulnesse and oversight, as if in the haste of her worke shee could not tell how to make that body exactly fit for that office to which shee intended it.¹³

Tis likely then that she had some other end which moved her to produce this variety, and this in all probability was her intent to make it a fit body for habitation with the same conveniences of sea and land, as this inferiour world doth partake of. For since the Moone is such a vast, such a solid and opacous body, like our earth (as was above proved) why may it not be probable, that those thinner and thicker parts appearing in her, doe shew the difference betwixt the sea and land in that other world? and Galilaeus doubts not, but that if our earth were visible at the same distance, there would be the like appearance of it.

If wee consider the Moone as another habitable earth, then the appearances of it will be altogether exact, and beautifull, and may argue unto us that it is fully accomplished for all those ends to which Providence did appoint it. But consider it barely as a starre or light, and then there will appeare in it much imperfection and deformitie, as being of an impure darke substance, and so unfit for the office of that nature.

As for the forme of those spots, some of the vulgar thinke they represent a man, and the Poëts guesse tis the boy Endymion, whose company shee loves so well, that shee carries him with her, others will have it onely to be the face of a man as the Moone is usually pictured, but Albertus thinkes rather, that it represents a Lyon with his taile towards the East, and his head the West, and¹⁴ some others have thought it to be very much like a Fox, and certainly ‘tis, as much like a Lyon as that in the Zodiake, or as Vrsa major is like a Beare.

I should guesse that it represents one of these as well as another, and any thing else as well as any of these, since ‘tis but a strong imagination, which fancies such images as schoole-boyes usually doe in the markes of a wall, whereas there is not any such similitude in the spots themselves,¹⁵ which rather like our Sea, in respect of the land, appeares under a rugged and confused figure, and doth not represent any distinct image, so that both in respect of the matter, and the forme it may be probable enough, that those spots and brighter parts may shew the the distinction betwixt the Sea and Land in that other world.

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Footnotes

1. So Bede in l. de Mund. constit. ↩

2. De subtil. lib. 3. ↩

3. Occulta. Philos. l. 1. cap. 6. ↩

4. Plut. de placit. phil. l. 2. c. 25. ↩

5. Iosephus l. 2. con. ↩

6. App. August. de Civit. Dei. l 18. c 41. ↩

7. Nat. Hist. l. 2. c. 9. ↩

8. Opt. lib. 9. Comment. in Purb. pag. 164. ↩

9. Ex qua parte luna est transpicua non solum secundum superficiem, sed etiam secundum substantiam, eatenus clara, ex qua autem parte opaca est, eatenus obscura videtur. De Phaenom. cap. 11. ↩

10. Albert. mag. de Coaevis. Q. 4. Art. 21. ↩

11. Colleg. Con. ↩

12. De Somniis ↩

13. Scalig. exercit. 62. ↩

14. Eusebius Nicremb. Hist. Nat. l. 8. c. 15. ↩

15. LIB. 1. Cap. 8. ↩