805 



MOTION OP THE EARTH. 



MOTION OF THE EARTH. 



too 



reference; they are headed by their dates: 1614, Schemer, 'Disqu. 

 Math, de contr. et novitat. Astron. ; ' 1615, Foscarini, ' Epistola Italica 

 de mobil. terrae. ; ' 1615, Zuniga, ' Lett, sopra 1'opin. del Copernico ; ' 

 1616, Cruger,* 'Disput. de quot. telluris. revol. ; ' 1618-1622, Kepler, 

 ' Epit. Astron. Copern. ; ' 1619, Lansberg (Philip), ' Comm. in motum 

 terrae ;' also tracts of Ursinus, Campanella, and Godenius; 1619,Fienus, 

 ' Disp. an Ccelum moveatur et terra quiescat ; ' 1631, Morinus, ' Famosi 

 et antiqui problematis de telluris motu et quiete hactenus optata 

 solutio;' 1631, Froraondus, ' Antaristarchus, sive Orbis terne immo- 

 trilis ; ' 1633, Galileo, ' Dial, sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, 

 Tolemaico e Copernicano," the prohibited work ; 1633, Lansberg (James, 

 son of Philip), ' Apol. comment. Phil. Lansberg in motum terra; ; ' 

 1634, Morinus, ' Reap, ad J. Lansberg Apolog. ; ' 1634, Rosse, ' Confut. 

 opin. Lansbergii;' 1635, Liuemann, 'Dsput. math, adstruens mot. 

 diurn. telluri vindicandum esse ; ' 1638, Wilkins, ' Discourse tending 

 to prove that 'tia probable there may be another habitable world in the 

 moon;' 1638, Bouillaud, 'Philolaus, sive diss. de vero syst. mundi ; ' 

 1640, Licetus, ' De terra, unico centro motus, disp. ; ' 1640 Wilkins 

 (anonymous), 'A Discourse tending to prove that 'tis probable the 

 earth is one of the planets ; ' 1642, Gassendi, ' Epistola! duae de motu 

 impreaso a motore translate ; ' tracts of Deusingius, Morinus, and 

 others ; 1643, Morinus, ' Alae telluris fractal, contra Gassendum ; ' 

 1643, Claramontius, ' Antiphilolaus ; ' 1644, Polaccus, ' Anticopernicus 

 Catholicus ; ' 1645, Rheita, ' Oculus Enoch et Eliae ' (defence of the 

 Tychonic system); 1645, Bouillaud, 'Astronomia Philolaiea;' 1645, 

 Christian, ' Disput. de trip, mundi system. ; ' 1645, Grandamicus, 

 ' Nova Demonstr. itnmob. terras ex virtute magnetica ; ' 1646, Rosse, 

 ' The New Planet no Planet, t or the Earth no Wandering Star, except 

 in the wandering heads of Galileans' (answer to Wilkins); 1647, 

 Gassendi, ' Institutio Astronomica ;' 1649, Gassendi, 'Apol. in Morini 

 lib. cui tit. Ala; telluris fractae una cum tribus Galilei Epistolis de 

 Conciliatione Sacra Scripture; cum systemate telluris mobilis; 1651, 

 Riccioli, 'Almagestum Novum;' 1653, Dubois, ' Dialogus Theologico- 

 astronomicus ; ' 1655, Herbinius, ' Examen Gontrov. famosae,' &c. ; 

 1656, anonymous, 'Demonstr. math, ineptiarum J. Dubois;' 1665, 

 Fabri, ' Dial. phys. in quibus de motu terrae disputatur;' 1668, Riccioli, 

 'Argomentofiscico-matematico contro il moto diurno della terra;' 1680, 

 Bianchini, ' Dial, contro U syst. Copern. ; ' 1682, Megerlmus, ' Syst. 

 Mundi Copern. demonstr." 



The controversy ceases to have any interest after the publication of 

 the ' Principia ' of Newton. Even to this day we believe there are 

 some who deny the earth's motion, on the authority of the Scriptures, 

 and every now and then a work appears producing mathematical 

 reasons for that denial ; these works, as fast as published, after making 

 each two converts and a half in a country town, are heard of no more 

 until fifty years afterwards, when they are discovered by bibliomaniacs 

 bound up in volumes of tracts with dissertations on squaring the 

 circle, and perpetual motion, and pamphlets predicting national bank- 

 ruptcy. 



We shall now recapitulate some of the arguments against the earth's 

 motion, taking first the scriptural and afterwards the physical. 



The scriptural arguments are of two kinds, Copernican and anti- 

 C'opernican ; for it must be remembered that the asserters of the 

 earth's motion, almost with one accord, admitted the Scriptures as a 

 judge of the controversy. The following are some of the texts and 

 arguments. We take them from Fienus, Fromond, Morin, Rosse, and 

 Riccioli on the one side, and from their statements of their opponents' 

 arguments, or from Wilkins, on the other. 



I'nuliu xix. 4, 5, 6 : " In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, 

 which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as 

 a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the 

 heaven, and hia circuit unto the ends of it." Here it is remarked that 

 the metaphor, where it exists, is explicit, in " at a bridegroom," " at a 

 strong man," but that the words which apply to the sun's motion are 

 absolute assertion. 



Ecclesiastes, i. 4, &c. : " One generation passeth away, and another 

 generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also 

 ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place whence he 

 arose. The wind goeth towards the south, and turneth about unto the 

 north." In the Vulgate, the last sentence refers to the sun : " Oritur 

 sol et occidit, et ad locum suum revertitur, ibique renascens gyrat per 

 meridiem, et flectitur ad aquilonem." 



Joshua, x. 12 : " Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, moon, 

 in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon 

 stayed. ... So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and 

 hasted not to go down about a whole day." It was contended that 

 the earth ought to have been made to stand still, " if Joshua had been 

 a Copernican." 



2 Kings, xx. 11 : "And he brought the shadow ten degrees back- 

 wards, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." Isaiah, 

 xxxviii. 8 : "So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was 

 gone down." 



Psalm xciii. 1: "The world also is stabliahed that it cannot be 

 moved." Psalm civ. 5 : " Who laid the foundations of the earth, that 

 it should not be removed for ever." 



The Preceptor of Hevelius. 



t Lalande gives a Latin title ; we do not know whether It was published in 

 Latin at the same time or not. 



Job, ix. 6, &c. : " Which shaketh the earth out of her place, <-.nd 

 the pillars thereof tremble ; which commandeth the sun, and it riseth 

 not, and sealeth up the stars." 



Job, xxxviii. 4, &c. : " Where wast thou when I laid the foundations 

 of the earth ? . . . Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened ? 

 or who laid the corner-stone thereof ? . . . Where is the way 

 where light dwelleth. ? and as for darkness, where is the place 

 thereof ? " 



The Copemicans cited the preceding, Job, ix. 6, and the following. 

 Psalm xcvii. 4, " The earth saw, and trembled ; " and Psalm xcviii. 7, 

 which in the English version, is " Let the sea roar, and the fulness 

 thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein ; " but in the Vulgate, 

 " Moveatur mare et plenitudo ejus, orbis terrarum, et universi qui 

 habitant hi eo." The Ptolemaists replied, with reason, that these texts 

 evidently imply a violent and unusual motion, while all the others 

 speak of stability as the common order of things. We look upon 

 Fromond as, next to Riccioli, the most learned and sensible of the 

 anti-movement party, while Lansberg is certainly not the least of the 

 Copernieans. Yet the latter, to fill up the immense void between 

 Saturn and the fixed stars, states that it is crowded with spirits good 

 and evil, employed in their vocations : the former meets him by the 

 following argument. By the universal consent of theologians, hell is 

 at the centre of the earth; the creed says that Jesus Christ " descended 

 into hell ; " and St. Paul, in Ephesians, iv. 9, that he " descended into 

 the lower parts of the earth." The empyreal heaven, and the habitation 

 of the blessed, must be as far as possible from hell ; but the former 

 was, by consent of theologians, at the circumference of the universe ; 

 therefore, says Fromond, the earth must be at the centre. But 

 Morinus outdoes the rest. From the creed, he says, it appears that 

 Jesus Christ "ascended into heaven;" and from the first chapter of 

 Acts, that he was " taken up." It is generally thought that the hour 

 of the ascension was noon, at which time, according to the Coper- 

 nicans, the heads of persons on the earth are towards the centre of the 

 system (the sun). Consequently it was not an ascent, but a descent, 

 for to go towards the centre is to descend. I know, says Morin, .that 

 the Copernicans have a subterfuge and a fallacy, for they say that the 

 ascent was an ascent with respect to the earth only ; and he goes on to 

 show what shuffling knaves they were, for so direct a perversion of plain 

 words. It is, however, but fair to the auti-Copernican party to add 

 that Riccioli, by far the most learned of all of them, has not thought 

 Morinus worthy of one word of mention in his list * of writers on the 

 subject. 



Riccioli cites the following additional texts. Genesis, xv. 12 : "And 

 when the sun was going down," &c. Gen., xix. 23 : "The sun was 

 risen upon the earth." Gen., xxxii. 31 : " The sun rose upon him." 

 Judges, xix. 14 : " The sun went down upon them." Matthew, v. 45 : 

 " He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good ; " with several 

 others to the same purport. Also Psalm Ixxv. 3 : " The earth and all 

 the inhabitants thereof are dissolved : I bear up the pillars of it." He 

 adds all the places in which " heaven above " and " earth beneath " are 

 mentioned. 



The Copernicans, besides the very few passages which they could 

 find alluding to a motion of the earth (and that only an unusual one), 

 brought forward texts in which admitted errors exist ; such as the 

 Mosaic definition of the firmament, the circumference of Solomon's 

 brazen sea (which, the diameter being ten cubits, must have been 

 upwards of thirty-one cubits in circumference, and not thirty, as stated), 

 and the like. To this the general answer was, that there is a great 

 difference between stating round numbers, according to usual measure- 

 ment, and absolutely asserting untruth. Riccioli however lays it down 

 that the obvious literal sense of the Scripture is to be taken, except 

 where it is manifestly false ; that Archimedes had shown the propor- 

 tion of ten to thirty to be false, but that no one had actually shown the 

 earth to move. This was evidently convenient, but unfair ; the motion 

 of the earth was the thing in question, and could not be proved false 

 by assuming a literal interpretation, which, it was admitted, might be 

 rejected if the earth's motion were true. 



Upon a review of the passages cited, it is cle<w enough that, if there 

 be any astionomical system at all in them, it is that of an immoveable 

 earth and a moveable sun ; while if there be no astronomical system, 

 it follows that vulgar notions are adopted in the modes of expression, 

 which represent appearances without reference to their truth or false- 

 hood. On one horn or other of this dilemma, all our modern Urbans 

 must be content to abide : will they go back to Ptolemy, or forward 

 with the advance of science ? Can they show any reason why the 

 astronomical system of the old Testament should be rejected, and 

 those passages which appear to favour one geological theory rather than 



* Since then this is a list selected by the latest writer of note, as well as the 

 most learned, it may be worth while to give the names. 



Oopcrnicatis : Copernicus, Rheticus, Macstlinus, Kepler, Rotbmann (except 

 when he followed Tycho), Gilbert, Foscarini, Zuniga, Bouillaud, Lansberg, 

 Hcrigonc, Gassendi, Des Cartes. 



Anti-Copernicana : Aristotle, Ptolemy, Theon, Rcgiomontanus, Alfraganus, 

 Clcomedes, Macrobius, D'Ailly, Buchanan, Maurolico, Clavius, Barocius, Ncandcr, 

 Telesitts, Martinengus, Lipsius, Scheiner, Tycho, Tassonus, Claramontius, 

 Inehofer, Fromondus, Lagalla, Tanner, Bart. Amicus, Kocco, Mcrsennc, Polaccus, 

 Kircber, Spinellus, Pineda, Lorinun, Mastrius, Bellutue, Pontius, Delphinus, 

 Elephiintutiiu. Many of these arc theologians only. 



