ASTRONOMICAL HISTORY. 159 



and in reality. And any one may easily observe both that 

 those who have supposed that the earth revolves on its axis, 

 and those, on the other hand, who have held it to be the 

 centre of motion, the ancient formation, depend on a nearly 

 balanced and doubtful advocacy of phenomena. Moreover, 

 the advocate in our day of the new formation, who makes 

 the sun the centre of the second motion, as the earth of the 

 first, while the planets, in their respective orbits, seem to 

 join in a dance round the sun, which some of the ancients 

 suspected in the case of Mercury and Venus, had he pur 

 sued his thoughts to their result, seems to have had it in 

 his power certainly to bring the question to a fair settle 

 ment. Nor, indeed, have we any doubt that other hypo 

 theses of such formations, may be invented by ingenious 

 and acute thinkers. Nor are those who promulgate such 

 theories much delighted, because what they propose is true, 

 but only because it is a convenient hypothesis for form 

 ing calculations and astronomical tables. But our method 

 has a widely different object. For we seek not accom 

 modations which may be various, but truth, which is one. 

 To attain this, a genuine history of phenomena would 

 open a way; one tainted with theory would obstruct it. 

 Nor shall we here omit, that we, as the result of such 

 a history of the heavenly bodies, made and accumulated 

 according to our rules, indulge not only the hope of a dis 

 covery of the truth with reference to the heavenly bodies, 

 but still more of such discovery in the observation of 

 the affections and appetencies of matter in either world. 

 For that supposed discrepancy between the celestial and 

 sublunary bodies appears to us a figment at once drivelling 

 and presumptuous, since it is most indubitable that a variety 

 of effects, such as expansion, contraction, impression, retro 

 cession, assimilation, union, and the like, have their seat 

 not merely among us, but in the highest part of heaven, 

 and in the entrails of the earth. Other and more faithful 

 interpreters than these there are none whom we can call in 

 and consult, to assist human intellect in penetrating the 

 depths of the earth, which are invisible, and the height of 

 heaven, which is generally seen under optical illusion. 

 Wherefore the ancients excellently devised of Proteus that 

 he was of many shapes, and also noted as the prince of all 

 diviners, knowing the past, the future, and the mysteries of 

 the present. For he who knows the catholic appetencies 

 of matter, and knows by them what is possible, cannot be 

 ignorant what is, and what will be, found true of things taken 



