The gradual acceptance of the Copernican theory of the universe Part 17

[Footnote 464: Psalm 92.]

[Footnote 465: Exod. 24. Ezek. 1, 10.]

[Footnote 466: Isa. 6.]

THEO. Nevertheless so vast and limitless a s.p.a.ce must be filled with air or fire, since there are no spheres there, nor will nature suffer any vacuum.

MYST. If then the firmament occupies the middle position between the two waters, then by this hypothesis you must admit that the s.p.a.ce beyond the spheres is empty of elemental and celestial bodies; otherwise you would have to admit that the last sphere extends on even to the crystalline orb, which can in no way be reconciled with the Holy Scriptures and still less with reason because of the incredible velocity of this sphere. Therefore it is far more probable that this s.p.a.ce is filled with angels.

THEO. Is there some medium between G.o.d and the angels which shares in the nature of both?

MYST. What is incorporeal and indivisible cannot communicate any part of its essence to another; for if a creature had any part of the divine essence, it would be all G.o.d, since G.o.d neither has parts nor can be divided, therefore He must be separated from all corporeal contact or intermixture.

_Section 12_: On guardian angels.

THEO. What then in corporeal nature is closest to G.o.d?

MYST. The two Seraphim, who stand near the eternal Creator,[467] and who are said to have six wings, two wherewith to fly, the others to cover head and feet. By this is signified the admirable swiftness with which they fulfill His commands, yet head and feet are veiled for so the purpose of their origin and its earliest beginning are not known to us. Also they have eyes scattered in all parts of their bodies to indicate that nothing is hidden from them. And they also pour oil for lighting through a funnel into the seven-branched candlestick; that is, strength and power are poured forth by the Creator to the seven planets, so that we should turn from created things to the worship and love of the Creator.

[Footnote 467: Isa. 6. Ezek. 1 and 10. Zach. 4. Exod. 24, 25.]

THEO. Since nothing is more fitting for the Divine goodness than to create, to generate, and to pile up good things for all, whence comes the destruction of the world and the ruin of all created things?

MYST. It is true Plato and Aristotle attributed the cause of all ills to the imperfection of matter in which they thought was some _kakopoion_,[468] but that is absurd since it is distinctly written: All that G.o.d had made was good, or as the Hebrews express it, beautiful,--so evil is nothing-else than the absence[469] or privation of good.

[Footnote 468: Maleficium quidam, _i.e._, some evil-power. Job 5.]

[Footnote 469: Augustine against Faustus wrote that vanity is not produced from the dust, nor evil from the earth.]

THEO. Can not wicked angels be defined without privation since they are corporeal essences?

MYST. Anything that exists is said to be good and to be a partic.i.p.ant by its existence in the divine goodness; and even as in a well regulated Republic, executioners, lictors, and corpse-bearers are no less necessary than magistrates, judges and overseers; so in the Republic of this world, for the generation, management and guardianship of things G.o.d has gathered together angels as leaders and directors for all the celestial places, for the elements, for living beings, for plants, for minerals, for states, provinces, families and individuals. And not only has He done this, but He has also a.s.signed His servants, lictors, avengers and others to places where they may do nothing without His order, nor inflict any punishment upon wicked men unless the affair has been known fully and so decided. Thus G.o.d is said[470] to have made Leviathan, which is the outflow of Himself, that is, the natural rise and fall of all things. "I have created a killer,"[471] He said, "to destroy," and so also Behemoth, and the demons cleaving to him, which are often called ravens, eagles and lions, and which are said to beg their food of G.o.d, that is, the taking of vengeance upon the wicked whose punishment and death they feed upon as upon ordinary fare. From these, therefore, or rather from ourselves, come death, pestilence, famine, war and those things we call ills, and not from the Author of all good things except by accident. For so G.o.d says of Himself:[472] "I am the G.o.d making good and creating evil, making light and creating darkness." For when He withdraws His spirit, evil follows the good; when He takes the light away, darkness is created; as when one removes the pillars of a building, the ruin of a house follows. If He takes the vital spark away, death follows; nor can He be said to do evil[473] to anyone in taking back what is His own.

[Footnote 470: Job 41 and 49. Isa. 54. Ezek. 31.]

[Footnote 471: Isa. 54.]

[Footnote 472: Isa. 45.]

[Footnote 473: Job 34.]

THEO. When the Legislator asked Him to disclose His face to his gaze, why did the Architect of the universe and the Author of all things reply: "My face is to be seen by no mortal man, but only my back?"

MYST. This fine allegory signifies that G.o.d cannot be known from superior or antecedent causes but from behind His back, that is, from results, for a little later He adds, "I will cover thine eyes with My hand." Thus the hand signifies those works which He has placed before anyone's eyes, and it indicates that He places man not in an obscure corner but in the center of the universe so that He might better and more easily than in heaven contemplate the universe and all His works through the sight of which, as through spectacles, the Sun, that is, G.o.d Himself, may be disclosed. And therefore we undertook this disputation concerning nature and natural things, so that even if they are but slightly explained, nevertheless we may attain from this disquisition an imperfect knowledge of the Creator and may break forth in His praises with all our might, that at length by degrees we may be borne on high and be blessed by the Divine reward; for this is indeed the supreme and final good for a man.

Here endeth the Drama of Nature which Jean Bodin wrote while all France was aflame with civil war.

FINIS

APPENDIX D.

A TRANSLATION OF A LETTER BY THOMAS FEYENS

ON THE QUESTION: IS IT TRUE THAT THE HEAVENS ARE MOVED AND THE EARTH IS AT REST? (FEBRUARY, 1619)

(_Thomae Fieni Epistolica Quaestio_: An verum sit, coelum moveri et terram quiescere? Londini, 1655.)

To the eminent and n.o.ble scholars, Tobias Matthias and George Gays:

It is proved that the heavens are moved and the earth is stationary: First; by authority; for besides the fact that this is a.s.serted by Aristotle and Ptolemy whom wellnigh all Philosophers and Mathematicians have followed by unanimous consent, except for Copernicus, Bernardus Patricius[474] and a very few others, the Holy Scriptures plainly attest it in at least two places which I have seen.

In Joshua,[475] are the words: Steteruntque sol et luna donec ulcisceretur gens de inimicis suis. And a little further on: Stet.i.t itaque sol in medio coeli, et non festinavit occ.u.mbere spatio unius diei, et non fuit antea et postea tam longa dies. The Scriptures obviously refer by these words to the motion of the _primum mobile_ by which the sun and the moon are borne along in their diurnal course and the day is defined; and it indicates that the heavens are moved as well as the _primum mobile_. Then Ecclesiastes, chapter 1,[476] reads: Generatio praeterit, et generatio advenit, terra autem semper stat, oritur sol et occidit, et ad loc.u.m suum revert.i.tur.

[Footnote 474: Feyens probably refers here to Francesco Patrizzi, who was an enemy of the peripatetics and a great supporter of platonism.

He died in 1597 at Rome, where Clement VIII had conferred on him the chair of philosophy.]

[Footnote 475: Joshua X: 13-14.]

[Footnote 476: Ecclesiastes I: 4.]

Secondly, it is proved by reason. All the heavens and stars were made in man's behalf and, with other terrestrial bodies, are the servants of man to warm, light, and vivify him.

This they could not do unless in moving they applied themselves by turns to different parts of the world. And it is more likely that they would apply themselves by their own movement to man and the place in which man lives, than that man should come to them by the movement of his own seat or habitation. For they are the servants of man; man is not their servant; therefore it is more probable that the heavens are moved and the earth is at rest than that the reverse is true.

Thirdly; no probable argument can be thought out from philosophy to prove that the earth is moved and the heavens are at rest. Nor can it be done by mathematics. By saying that the heavens are moved and the earth is at rest, all phenomena of the heavenly bodies can be solved.

Just as in the same way in optics all can be solved by saying either that sight comes from the thing to the eye, or that rays go from the eye to the thing seen; so is it in astronomy. Therefore one ought rather to abide in the ancient and general opinion than in one received recently without justification.

Fourthly; the earth is the center of the universe; all the heavenly bodies are observed to be moved around it; therefore it itself ought to be motionless, for anything that moves, it seems, should move around or above something that is motionless.

Fifthly; if the earth is moved in a circle, either it moves that way naturally or by force, either by its own nature or by the nature of another. It is not by its own nature, for straight motion from above downward is natural to it; therefore circular motion could not be natural to it. Further, the earth is a simple body; and a simple body can not have two natural motions of distinct kinds or cla.s.ses. Nor is it moved by another body; for by what is it moved? One has to say it is moved either by the sun or by some other celestial body; and this cannot be said, since either the sun or that body is said to be at rest or in motion. If it is said to be at rest, then it cannot impart movement to another. If it is said to be in motion, then it can not move the earth, because it ought to move either by a motion similar to its own or the opposite of it. It is not similar, since thus it would be observed to move neutrally as when two boats moving in the same direction, appear not to move but to be at rest. It is not the opposite motion, since nothing could give motion contrary to its own.

And because Galileo seems to say, in so far as I have learned from your lordships, that the earth was moved by the sun; I prove anyway that this is not true since the movement of the sun and of the earth ought to be from contrary and distinct poles. The sun, however, can not be the cause of the other's movement because it is moved above different poles. Lastly, the earth follows the motion of no other celestial body; since if it is moved, it moves in 24 hours, and all the other celestial bodies require the s.p.a.ce of many days, months and years. Ergo. Finally, if the earth is moved by another, its motion would be violent; but this is absurd, for no violence can be regular and perpetual.

Sixthly; even so it is declared that the earth is moved. Nevertheless, it must be admitted to this that either the planets themselves or their spheres are moved, for in no other way can the diversities of aspects among themselves be solved; nor can a reason be given why the sun does not leave the Ecliptic and the moon does; and how a planet can be stationary or retrograde, high or low,--and many other phenomena. For this reason those who said the earth moved, as Bernardus Patricius and the others said, claimed that the _primum mobile_, forsooth, was stationary and that the earth was moved in its place; yet they could not in the least deny that the planets themselves were moved, but admitted it. That is the reason why both ancient and modern mathematicians, aside from the motion of the _primum mobile_, were forced to admit and consider the peculiar movements of the planets themselves. If therefore it must be acknowledged, and it is certain, that the stars and the celestial bodies are moved; then it is more probable that all movement perceived in the universe belongs rather to the heavenly bodies than to the earth. For if movement were ascribed to all the rest, why for that same reason is not diurnal rotation ascribed rather to the _primum mobile_ than to the earth, particularly when our senses seem to decide thus? Although one may well be mistaken, sometimes, concerning other similar movements; yet it is not probable that all ages could be at fault, or should be, about the movements of its most important objects, of course the celestial luminaries.

Seventhly; it is proved by experience. For if the earth is moved, then an arrow shot straight up on high could never fall back to the place whence it was shot, but should fall somewhere many miles away. But this is not so. Ergo.

This can be answered and is so customarily in this way: this does not follow because the air is swept along with the earth, and so, since the air which carries the arrow is turning in the same way with the earth, the arrow also is borne along equally with it, and thus returns to the same spot. This in truth is a pure evasion and a worthless answer for many reasons.

It is falsely observed that the air is moved and by the same motion as the earth. For what should move the earth? Truly, if the air is moved by the same motion as the earth, either it ought to be moved by the earth itself, or by that other which moves the earth, or by itself. It is not moved by itself; since it has another motion, the straight one of course natural to itself, and also since it has a nature, an essence and qualities all different from the nature and the essence of the earth; therefore it could not by its own nature have the same motion as that other, but of necessity ought to have a different one.

Nor is it moved by any other that may move the earth; as that which moves the earth could not at the same time and with like motion move the air. For since the air is different from the earth in essence, in both active and pa.s.sive qualities, and in kind of substance, it can not receive the impelling force of the acting body, or that force applied in the same way as the earth, and so could not be moved in the same way. The virtues [of bodies] acting and of moving diversely are received by the recipients according to the diversity of their dispositions. Also it can not be moved by the earth; since if it were moved by the earth, it must be said to be moved by force, but such motion appears to be impossible. Ergo. The minor premise is proved: for if air is thus moved by the earth by force the air ought to be moved more rapidly than the earth, because air is larger [than the earth].

For what is outside is larger than what is inside. When, however, what is larger and what is outside is driven around equally rapidly with what is less, and what is inside, then the former is moved much more rapidly. Thus it is true that the sphere of Saturn in its daily course is moved far faster than the sphere of the moon. But it is impossible that the one driven should move more rapidly than the one driving; therefore the air is not moved by the earth's violence. Thus would it be if the air were moved with the earth, or by itself, or by force.

Thus far, then, the force of the original argument remains; since of its own motion, indeed, it could not be in every way conformable to the motion of the earth as I have shown; and this because the air differs from the earth in consistency of substance, in qualities and in essence. But the air ought at all events to move more sluggishly than the earth. It follows from this that an arrow shot straight up could not return to its starting point; for the earth, moving like the air, on account of the other's slower rate leaves it behind, and the arrow also which is carried away from it.