386 HISTORY OF FORMAL ASTRONOMY. 



called in on both sides to support these views. 

 Numa, as Plutarch 6 informs us, built a circular 

 temple over the ever-burning Fire of Vesta ; typi- 

 fying, not the earth, but the Universe, which, 

 according to the Pythagoreans, has the Fire seated 

 at its Center. The same writer, in another of his 

 works, makes one of his interlocutors say, "Only, 

 my friend, do not bring me before a court of law 

 on a charge of impiety; as Cleanthes said, that 

 Aristarchus the Samian ought to be tried for im- 

 piety, because he removed that homestead of the 

 universe." This, however, seems to have been in- 

 tended as a pleasantry. 



The prevalent physical views, and the opinions 

 concerning the causes of the motions of the parts 

 of the universe, were scarcely more definite than 

 those concerning the relations of the four elements, 

 till Galileo had founded the true doctrine of motion. 

 Though, therefore, arguments on this part of the 

 subject were the most important part of the contro- 

 versy after Copernicus, the force of such arguments 

 was at his time almost balanced. Even if more had 

 been known on such subjects, the arguments would 

 not have been conclusive : for instance, the vast mass 

 of the heavens, which is commonly urged as a reason 

 why the heavens do not move round the earth, 

 would not make such a motion impossible ; and, on 

 the other hand, the motions of bodies at the earth's 

 surface, which were alleged as inconsistent with its 



6 De Facie in Orbe Lnnce, 6. 



