So that notwithstanding those doubts, yet this proposition may remaine true, that the spots may be the Sea, and the brighter parts the Land. Of this opinion was Plutarch:⁷ unto him assented Keplar and Galilaeus,⁸ whose words are these, Si quis veterum Pythagoreorum sententiam exuscitare velit, lunam scilicet esse quasi tellurem alteram, ejus pars lucidior terrenam superficiem, obscurior verò aqueam magis congruè repraesentet. Mihi autem dubium fuit nunquam terrestris globi à longè conspecti, atque a radiis solaribus perfusi, terream superficiem clariorem, obscuriorem vero aqueam sese in conspectum daturam. If any man have a mind to renue the opinion of the Phythagoreans, that the Moone is another earth, then her brighter parts may fitly represent the earths superficies, and the darker part the water: and for my part, I never doubted but that our earthly globe being shined upon by the Sunne, and beheld at a great distance, the Land would appeare brightest, and the Sea more obscurely. The reasons may be.

1. That which I urged about the foregoing chapter, because the water is the thinner part, and therefore must give lesse light.

Since the Starres and Planets, by reason of their brightnesse, are usually concluded to bee the thicker parts of their orbe.

2. Water is in it selfe of a blacker colour (saith Aristotle) and therefore more remote from light than the earth.⁹ Any parts of the ground being moistned with raine, dos looke much more darkely than when it is dry.

3. ‘Tis observed that the secondary light of the Moone (which afterwards is proved to proceede from our earth) is sensibly brighter unto us, for two or three dayes before the conjunjunction, in the morning when she appeares Eastward, than about the same time after the conjunction, when shee is seene in the West. The reason of which must be this, because that part of the earth which is opposite to the Moone in the East, has more land in it than Sea. Whereas on the contrary, the Moone when she is in the West, is shined upon by that part of our earth where there is more Sea than Land, from whence it will follow with good probabilitie that the earth dos cast a greater light than the water.

4. Because observation tels us, that the spotted parts are alwayes smooth and equall, having every where an equality of light when once they are enlightned by the Sunne, whereas the brighter parts are full of rugged gibbosities and mountaines, having many shades in them, as I shall shew more at large afterwards.

That in this Planet there must bee Seas, Campanella indeavours to prove out of Scripture interpreting the waters above the Firmament spoken in Genesis,¹⁰ to bee meant of the Sea in this world. For (saith he) ‘tis not likely that there are any such waters above the Orbes to moderate that heate which they receive from their swift motion (as some of the Fathers think.) Nor did Moses meane the Angels which may be called spirituall waters, as Origen and Austin would have it,¹¹ for both these are rejected by the generall consent: Nor could he meane any waters in the second region,¹² as most Commentators interpret it. For first there is nothing but vapours, which though they are afterwards turned into water, yet while they remayne there, they are onely the matter of that element, which may as well bee fire or earth or ayre. 2 Those vapours are not above the expansum but in it. So that hee thinkes there is no other way to salve all, but by making the Planets severall worlds with Sea and Land, with such Rivers & Springs as we have here below: Especially since Esdras speakes of the springs above the Firmament. (2 Esdr 4. 7) But I cannot agree with him in this, nor doe I thinke that any such thing can bee proved out of Scripture.

Before I proceede to the next position, I shall first answer some doubts which might be made against the generalitie of this truth, whereby it may seeme impossible that there should be either Sea or Land in the Moone; for since she moves so swiftly as Astronomers observe, why then does there nothing fall from her, or why doth she not shake something out by the celerity of her revolution? I answer, you must know that the inclination of every heavy body to its proper Center, doth sufficiently tie it unto its place; so that suppose any thing were separated, yet must it necessarily returne againe. And there is no more danger of their falling into our world than there is feare of our falling into the Moone.

But yet there are many fabulous relations of such things as have dropped thence. There is a tale of the Nemean Lyon that Hercules slew, which first rushing among the heards out of his unknowne den in the Mountaine of Cytheron in Boeotia,¹³ the credulous people thought hee was sent from their Goddesse the Moone. And if a whirlewinde did chance to snatch any thing up, and afterwards raine it downe againe, the ignorant multitude were apt to believe that it dropt from Heaven. Thus Avicenna relates the story of a Calfe which fell downe in a storme, the beholders thinking it a Moone-calfe, and that it fell thence. So Cardan travelling upon the Apennine Mountaines, a sudden blast tooke off his hat, which if it had been carryed farre, he thinks the peasants who had perceived it to fall, would have sworne it had rained hats. After some such manner, many of our prodigies come to passe, and the people are willing to believe any thing, which they may relate to others as a very strange and wonderfull event. I doubt not but the Trojan Palladium, the Romane Minerva, and our Ladies Church at Loretto, with many sacred reliques preserved by the Papists might drop from the Moone as well as any of these.

But it may be againe objected, suppose there were a bullet shot up in that world, would not the Moone runne away from it, before it could fall downe, since the motion of her body (being every day round our earth) is farre swifter than the other, and so the bullet must be left behind, and at length fall downe to us? To this I answer,

1. If a bullet could bee shot so far till it came to the circumference of those things which belong to our center, then it would fall downe to us.

2. Though there were some heavie body a great height in that ayre, yet would the motion of its center belong by an attractive vertue still hold it within its convenient distance, so that whether their earth moved or stood still, yet would the same violence cast a body from it equally far. That I may the plainer expresse my meaning, I will set downe this Diagramme.

Suppose this earth were A, which was to move in the circle C D. and let the bullet be supposed at B. within its proper verge; I say, whether this earth did stand still or move swiftly towards D, yet the bullet would still keepe at the same distance by reason of that Magnetick vertue of the center (if I may so speake) whereby all things within its spheare are attracted with it. So that the violence to the bullet,¹⁴ being nothing else but that whereby ‘tis removed from its center, therefore an equall violence can carry a body from its proper place, but at an equall distance, whether or no this earth where its center is, dos stand still or move.

The impartiall Reader may finde sufficient satisfaction for this and such other arguments as may be urged against the motion of that earth, in the writings of Copernicus and his followers, unto whom for brevities sake I will referre them.

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Footnotes

1. Opt. Astro. c. 6 num 9 D[…]t cum nuncio Gal. ↩

2. Exercit. 38 ↩

3. De Metcoris l. 5. c. 1. Art. 1. ↩

4. LIB. 1. Cap. 6 ↩

5. LIB. 1. Cap. 8 ↩

6. Galilaeus System. coll. 1. ↩

7. De facio lun. ↩

8. Dissertatio. Nunc. Syd. ↩

9. In lib. de coloribus. ↩

10. Apologia pro Galilaeo. ↩

11. Vide Ieron. epist. ad Pammachium. ↩

12. Confession. l. 13. c. 32. Retracted. lib. 2. Retr. cap. 6. ↩

13. Vide Guli: Nubrigens. de rebus Anglica: lib. 1. ↩

14. LIB. 1. Cap. 9. ↩