The opinion of Seleucus the Mathematician censured.Mathematician) that the motion of the Earth meeting with the motion of the Lunar Orb, the concurrence of them occasioneth the Ebbing and Flowing, is an absolute vanity, not onely because it is not exprest, nor seen how it should so happen, but the falsity is obvious, for that the Revolution of the Earth is not contrary to the motion of the Moon, but is towards the same way. So that all that hath been hitherto said, and imagined by others, is, in my judgment, altogether invalid. But amongst all the famous men that have philosophated upon this admirable effect of Nature,Kepler is with respect blamed. I more wonder at Kepler than any of the rest, who being of a free and piercing wit, and having the motion ascribed to the Earth, before him, hath for all that given his ear and assent to the Moons predominancy over the Water, and to occult properties, and such like trifles.
Sagr.I am of opinion, that to these more spaculative persons the same happened, that at present befalls me, namely, the not understanding the intricate commixtion of the three Periods Annual, Monethly, and Diurnal; And how their causes should seem to depend on the Sun, and on the Moon, without the Suns or Moons having any thing to do with the Water; a businesse, for the full understanding of which I stand in need of a little longer time to consider thereof, which the novelty and difficulty of it hath hitherto hindred me from doing: but I despair not, but that when I return in my solitude and silence to ruminate that which remaineth in my fancy, not very well digested, I shall make it my own. We have now, from these four dayes Discourse, great attestations, in favour of the Copernican Systeme, amongst which these three taken: the first, from the Stations and Retrogradations of the Planets, and from their approaches, and recessions from the Earth; the second, from the Suns revolving in it self, and from what is observed in its spots; the third, from the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea do shew very rational and concluding.
Salv.To which also haply, in short, one might adde a fourth, and peradventure a fifth; a fourth, I say, taken from the fixed stars, seeing that in them, upon exact observations, those minute mutations appear, that Copernicus thought to have been insensible. There starts up, at this instant, a fifth novelty, from which one may argue mobility in the Terrestrial Globe, by means of that which the most Illustrious Signore Cæsare,Sig. Cæsare Marsilius observeth the Meridian to be moveable. of the noble Family of the Marsilii of Bologna, and a Lyncean Academick, discovereth with much ingenuity, who in a very learned Tract of his, sheweth very particularly how that he had observed a continual mutation, though very slow in the Meridian line, of which Treatise, at length, with amazement, perused by me,I
