And a caviller might raise all the same objections to
the Copernican system, which you have urged against my
reasonings. Have you other earths, might he say, which you have
seen to move? Have _
Yes! cried P/HILO\, interrupting him, we have other earths.
Is not the moon another earth, which we see to turn round its
centre? Is not Venus another earth, where we observe the same
phenomenon? Are not the revolutions of the sun also a
confirmation, from analogy, of the same theory? All the planets,
are they not earths, which revolve about the sun? Are not the
satellites moons, which move round Jupiter and Saturn, and along
with these primary planets round the sun? These analogies and
resemblances, with others which I have not mentioned, are the
sole proofs of the C/OPERNICAN\ system; and to you it belongs to
consider, whether you have any analogies of the same kind to
support your theory.
In reality, C/LEANTHES\, continued he, the modern system of
astronomy is now so much received by all inquirers, and has
become so essential a part even of our earliest education, that
we are not commonly very scrupulous in examining the reasons upon
which it is founded. It is now become a matter of mere curiosity
to study the first writers on that subject, who had the full
force of prejudice to encounter, and were obliged to turn their
arguments on every side in order to render them popular and
convincing. But if we peruse G/ALILEO\'s famous Dialogues
concerning the system of the world, we shall find, that that
great genius, one of the sublimest that ever existed, first bent
all his endeavours to prove, that there was no foundation for the
distinction commonly made between elementary and celestial
substances.
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