33 



lastly, in p. 296, he adds, " that the want of accuracy in 

 the theory of the images of being, arises from our imbe- 

 cility; for, to the knowledge of them we require imagina- 

 tion, sense, and many other organs. But the Gods con- 

 tractedly contain these in their unity and divine intellection ; 

 for, in sublunary natures, we are satisfied in apprehending 

 that which, for the most part, takes place on account of the 

 instability of their subject matter. But again, in celestial 

 natures, we are filled with much of the conjectural, through 

 employing sense and material instruments. On this account 

 we must be satisfied with proximity in the apprehension, of 

 them, since we dwell remotely at the bottom, as it is said, of 

 the universe. This also is evident from those that are con- 

 versant with them, who collect the same things respecting 

 them from different hypotheses; some things, indeed, 

 through eccentrics, others through epicycles, and others 

 through evolvents, [in all these] preserving the pheno- 

 mena." 



Shuttle worth, in his Astronomy, has demonstrated that 

 the celestial phenomena may be solved by the hypotheses 

 of Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe, equally as well as by those 

 of Copernicus. But astronomers of the present day, from 

 not being skilled in the logic of Aristotle, are not aware that 

 true conclusions may be deduced from false premises; and 

 hence, because their theory solves the phenomena, they 

 immediately conclude that it is true. Aristotle, in his Pos- 

 terior Analytics, has incontrovertibly shown, " that the 

 things from which demonstrative science consists, must be 

 necessarily true, the causes of, more known than, and prior 

 to the conclusion. But where the premises of a syllogism 

 are false, the conclusion is not scientifically, i. e. necessarily, 

 true. Thus in the syllogism, Every stone is an animal ; 

 D 



