KOTES. CVU 



is was the case with all the astronomers of the 17th. century, traces of long and 

 intimate acquaintance with classical antiquity. Copernicus had in his mind 

 Cic. Somn. Scip. c. 4 ; Plin. ii. 4 ; and Mercur. Trismeg. lib. T. (ed. Cracor. 

 1586), p. 195 and 201. The allusion to the Electra of Sophocles is obscure, 

 as the sun is not termed any where " all-seeing," as it is in the Iliad 

 and the Odyssey, and also in the Choephorse of JUschylus (v. 980), which yet 

 Copernicus would not probably have called Electra. According to Bockh's 

 conjecture, the allusion is to hi ascribed to a vague remembrance of verse 

 869 of Sophocles' CEdipus Coloaeus. It is singular that quite lately, in an 

 otherwise instructive memoir (Czynski, Kopernik et ses Travaux, 1847, p. 

 102), the Electra of the tragedian is confounded with " electric currents." 

 The passage of Copernicus quoted above is thus translated : " Si on prend le 

 soleil pour le flambeau de 1'univers, pour son ame, pour son guide, si Trime- 

 giste le nomme un Dieu, si Sophocle le croit une puissance electrique qui anime 

 et contemple 1'ensemble de la creation.", , . . 



( 466 ) p. 307. "Pluribus ergo existentibus centris, de centro quoque mnndi 

 non temere quis dubitabit, an videlicet fuerit istud gravitatis terrenes, an aliud. 

 Equidem existimo, gravitatem noa aliud esse, quam appetentiam quandam 

 naturalem partibus inditam a divina providentia opficis universorum, ut in nni- 

 tatem integritatemque suam sese conferant in fonnam globi coeuntes. Quam 

 affectionem credibile est etiam Soli, Lunee, cseterisque errantium fulgoribus 

 inesse, ut ejus efficacia in ea qua se reprasentant rotunditate permaneant, qua 

 nihilominus multis modis sues efficiunt circuitus. Si igitur et terra faciat alios, 

 ut pote secundum centrum (mundi), necesse erit eos esse qui similiter extrin- 

 secus in multis apparent, in quibus invenimus annuum circuitum. Ipse 

 denique Sol medium mundi putabitur possidere, quse omnia ratio ordinis, quo 

 ilia sibi invicem succedunt, et mundi totius harmonia nos docet, si modo rem 

 ipsam ambobus (ut ajunt) oculis inspiciamus" (Copern. de Revol. Orb. Coal, 

 lib. i. cap. 9, p. 7, b). 



(*) p. 308. Plut. de Facie in Orbe Lnnaj, p. 923, c (compare Ideler, 

 Meteorologia Veterum Graecorum et Romanorum, 1832, p. 6). In the pas- 

 sage of Plutarch, Anaxagoras is not named ; but that the latter applied the 

 same theory of "falling if the force of rotation intermitted" to all the material 

 celestial bodies, we learn from Diog. Laert. ii. 12, and the many passages 

 which I have collected (Kosmos, Bd. i. S. 139, 397, 401, and 408 ; Engl. 

 trans. Vol. i. p. ] 23-124, Notes 62, 69, 89). Compare also Aristot. de Casio, 

 ii. 1, p. 284, a 24, Bekker and a remarkable passage of Simplicius,p. 491, b, 

 in the Scholia, according to the edition of the Berlin Academy, where the 



