[ «6 J 



very confiderable, in refpect to which our own navigators and the 

 Dutch perfectly agree. In regard to the torrid zone, we have 

 now not the lead doubt of its being thoroughly inhabited ; and, 

 which is more wonderful, that the climates are very different 

 there, according to the circumftances of their fituation. In 

 Ethiopia, Arabia, and the Moluccas, exceedingly hot ; but in 

 the plains of Peru (and particularly at Quito) perfectly temperate, 

 fo that the inhabitants never change their cloaths in any feafon 

 of the year. The fentiments of the ancients therefore in this 

 refpect are a proof how inadequate the faculties of the human 

 mind are to difcuffions of this nature, when unaffifted by facts. 



The Pythagorean fyftem of the univerfe revifed, and reftored 

 near two hundred and fifty years ago by the celebrated Coperni- 

 cus, met with a very difficult and flow reception, not only from 

 the bulk of mankind, for that might have been well expected, 

 but even from the learned ; and fome very able aftronomers at- 

 tempted to overturn and refute it h . Galileo Galilei wrote an 

 admirable treatife in its fupport, in which he very fully re- 

 moved moft of the popular objections s . This, however, ex- 

 pofed him to the rigour of the inquiution, and he was obliged to 

 abjure the doctrine of the earth's motion. Our noble philofb- 

 pher, the deep and acute Lord Verulam, could not abfolutely 

 confide in the truth and certainty of the Copernican fyflem ; but 

 feems to think, that its facilitating aftronomical calculations was 

 its principal recommendation, as if this had not been alfo a 



h Amongft the moft confiderable of thefe was John Baptift Riccioli, 

 who publilhed his Almageftum Novum with this view. Yet afterwards, in 

 his Aftronomia Refonnata, he found himfelf obliged to have recourfe to 

 the doctrine of the earth's motion, that he might be able to give his cal- 

 culations with a proper degree of exactnefs. 



* This celebrated work of his was entitled, Dialoghi de Siftemi di Tblomeo, 

 e di Copernico. This is much better known to the learned world by a 

 Latin tranflation, which fo clearly proved the fuperiority of the Coperni- 

 can fyftem, that the only means of refuting it was by the cenfures of the 

 church. 



very 



