(&amp;gt; THEORY OF THE FIRMAMENT. 



each other. This motion is commonly rotatory, such as 

 is generally found in the heavenly bodies ; for motion in 

 a circle has no termination, and seems to flow from a 

 natural desire of the body, which moves, only that it 

 may move, and follow itself, and seek its own embraces, 

 and excite its nature, and enjoy it, and exercise itself in 

 its proper operation; whereas a motion in a right line 

 may seem a finite journeying, and a movement to a boun 

 dary of cessation or rest, and that it may attain some 

 thing, and then quietly lay down its motion. Wherefore 

 respecting that rotatory motion, which motion is true and 

 perennial, and commonly supposed peculiar to the heavenly 

 bodies, we must inquire how it equips itself in the outset, 

 and by what rate of conduct it incites and checks itself, 

 and what the nature may be of those influences which 

 really act upon it. In our progress of unfolding these 

 things, we will refer to computations and tables, that 

 beautiful mathematical dogma (that all motions are res 

 trained to circles, perfect, or eccentric, or concentric), and 

 that high flown dictum (that the earth is, in respect of the 

 firmament, like a point of no magnitude), and many more 

 feigned discoveries of astronomers. But first we will 

 divide the heavenly motions : some are cosmici, others 

 ad invicem. Those we call cosmici, which the heavenly 

 bodies acquire from the consent not only of the heavens 

 but of the universe : those ad invicem, in which some 

 heavenly bodies depend on others: and this is a true 

 and necessary division. On the supposition, then, of the 

 earth standing still (for that at present appears to us the 

 truer hypothesis), it is manifest that the heavens are car 

 ried round by a diurnal motion, the measure of which 

 motion is the space of twenty-four hours, or thereabouts ; 

 and, consequently, the revolution is from east to west, 

 upon certain points, (which they call poles,) south and 

 north : moreover the heavens are not whirled round move- 

 able poles, nor, back again, are the points different from 

 those stated; and this motion verily seems in harmony 

 with universal nature, and therefore sole, except as far as 

 it admits both of decrements and declinations; accord 

 ing to which decrements and declinations this motion 

 shoots through every thing moveable, and pervades all 

 space, from the constellated firmament even to the very 

 bowels and inmost recesses of the earth ; not by any 

 snatched or harassing course, but by perpetual consent; 



