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free to choose between that and the Copernican one, both of which he carefully explained.[1] He made an interesting summary in parallel columns of the arguments for and against the earth's motion which it seems worth while to repeat as an instance of what the common people were taught:
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Reasons for asserting the earth is motionless: 1. David in Psalm 89: God has founded the earth and it shall not be moved.
2. Joshua bade the sun stand still—which would not be notable were it not already at rest.
3. The earth is the heaviest element, therefore it more probably is at rest.
4. Everything loose on the earth seeks its rest on the earth, why should not the whole earth itself be at rest?
5. We always see half of the heavens and the fixed stars also in a great half circle, which we could not see if the earth moved, and especially if it declined to the north and south.…
6. A stone or an arrow shot straight up falls straight down. But if the earth turned under it, from west to east, it must fall west of its starting point.
7. In such revolutions houses and towers would fall in heaps.
8. High and low tide could not exist; the flying of birds and the swimming of fish would be hindered and all would be in a state of dizziness. And similarly on both sides.[2]
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Reasons for the belief that the earth is moved: 1. The sun, the most excellent, the greatest and the midmost star, rightly stands still like a king while all the other stars with the earth swing around it.
2. That you believe that the heavens revolve is due to ocular deception similar to that of a man on a ship leaving shore.
3. That Joshua bade the sun stand still Moses wrote for the people in accordance with the popular misconception.
4. As the planets are each a special created thing in the heavens, so the earth is a similar creation and similarly revolves.
5. The sun fitly rests at the center as the heart does in the middle of the human body.
6. Since the earth has in itself its especial centrum, a stone or an arrow falls freely out of the air again to its own centrum as do all earthly things.
7. The earth can move five miles in a second more readily than the sun can go forty miles in the same time.
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