the Solar spots? for as to the Comets, I for my own particular little care to make them generated under or above the Moon; nor did I ever put much stresse on the loquacity of Tycho; nor am I hard to believe that their matter is Elementary, and that they may elevate (sublimate) themselves at their pleasure, without meeting with any obstacle from the impenetrability of the Peripatetick Heaven, which I hold to be far more thin, yielding, and subtil than our Air; and as to the calculations of the Parallaxes, first, the uncertainty whether Comets are subject to such accidents, and next, the inconstancy of the observations, upon which the computations are made, make me equally suspect both those opinions:Anti-Tycho wresteth Astronomical observations to his own purpose. and the rather, for that I see him you call Anti-Tycho, sometimes stretch to his purpose, or else reject those observations which interfere with his design.
Simpl.As to the new Stars, Anti-Tycho extricates himself finely in three or four words; saying, That those modern new Stars are no certain parts of the Cœlestial bodies, and that the adversaries, if they will prove alteration and generation in those superior bodies, must shew some mutations that have been made in the Stars described so many ages past, of which there is no doubt but that they be Cœlestial bodies, which they can never be able to do: Next, as to those matters which some affirm, to generate and dissipate in the face of the Sun, he makes no mention thereof; wherefore I conclude, that he believed them fictious, or the illusions of the Tube, or at most, some petty effects caused by the Air, and in brief, any thing rather than matters Cœlestial.
Salv.But you, Simplicius, what answer could you give to the opposition of these importunate spots which are started up to disturb the Heavens, and more than that, the Peripatetick Philosophy? It cannot be but that you, who are so resolute a Champion of it, have found some reply or solution for the same, of which you ought not to deprive us.
Simpl.I have heard sundry opinions about this particular. One saith: "They are Stars which in their proper Orbs,Sundry opinions touching the Solar spots. like as Venus and Mercury, revolve about the Sun, and in passing under it, represent themselves to us obscure; and for that they are many, they oft happen to aggregate their parts together, and afterwards seperate again. Others believe them to be äerial impressions; others, the illusions of the chrystals; and others, other things: But I incline to think, yea am verily perswaded, That they are an aggregate of many several opacous bodies, as it were casually concurrent among themselves. And therefore we often see, that in one of those spots one may number ten or more such small bodies, which are of irregu-"lar
