200 NOVUM ORGANUM 



from that of the world, which two circumstances have occa 

 sioned this notion. For the first phenomenon is well ac 

 counted for by the spheres overtaking or falling behind 

 each other, and the second by spiral lines; so that the in 

 accuracy of the return and declination to the tropics may 

 be rather modifications of the one. diurnal motion than con 

 trary motions, or about different poles. And it is most 

 certain, if we consider ourselves for a moment as part of 

 the vulgar (setting aside the fictions of astronomers and the 

 school, who are wont undeservedly to attack the senses in 

 many respects, and to affect obscurity), that the apparent 

 motion is such as we have said, a model of which we have 

 sometimes caused to be represented by wires in a sort of a 

 machine. 



We may take the following instances of the cross upon 

 this subject. If it be found in any history worthy of credit, 

 that there has existed any comet, high or low, which has 

 not revolved in manifest harmony (however irregularly) with 

 the diurnal motion, then we may decide so far as to allow 

 such a motion to be possible in nature. But if nothing of 

 the sort be found, it must be suspected, and recourse must 

 be had to other instances of the cross. 



Again, let the required nature be weight or gravity. 

 Heavy and ponderous bodies must, either of their own 

 nature, tend toward the centre of the earth by their peculiar 

 formation, or must be attracted and hurried by the corporeal 

 mass of the earth itself, as being an assemblage of similar 

 bodies, and be drawn to it by sympathy. But if the latter 

 be the cause, it follows that the nearer bodies approach to 

 the earth, the more powerfully and rapidly they must be 

 borne toward it, and the further they are distant, the more 

 faintly and slowly (as is the case in magnetic attractions), 



