[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
them.
But who ever told you the comets pass in the ethereal regions? The comets pass in the sublunary
region, and here we have air, as you can see for yourself.
Nothing moves that is not body. The heavens move. Hence they are body.
In order to talk nonsensical, you even become Aristote-lian. But I know why you say this. You want air
to be also in the heavens, then there is no more differentia between above and below, all turns, and the
earth moves its derriere like a strumpet.
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But we see every night the stars in a different posi-tion....
Richtig. De facto they move.
Wait. I have not finished. You would have the sun and all the stars, which are enormous bodies, make a
revolution around the earth every twenty-four hours, and the fixed stars, or, rather, the great ring in which
they are set, should travel more than twenty-seven thousand times two hundred million leagues? For this
is what would have to happen if the earth did not make a complete revolution in twenty-four hours. How
can the fixed stars move so fast? Their inhabitants would be dizzy!
If they have any inhabitants. But this is petitio principii.
And he pointed out that it was easy to invent an argument in favor of the movement of the sun, whereas
there were far more arguments against the movement of the earth.
I know well, Roberto replied, that Ecclesiastes says terra autem in aeternum stat, sol oritur, and that
Joshua stopped the sun and not the earth. But you yourself have taught me that if we take the Bible
literally, there would have been light before the creation of the sun. So the Holy Book must be read with
a grain of salt, and even Saint Augustine knew that it often speaks more allegorico....
Father Caspar smiled and reminded him that the Jesuits had long ago given up defeating their adversaries
with Scrip-tural cavils; now they used incontrovertible arguments based on astronomy, on sense, on
mathematical and physical reasons.
What reasons, ad exemplum? Roberto asked, scraping away a bit of grease from his belly.
Ad exemplum, Father Caspar replied, irked, with the powerful Argument of the Wheel: Now you
listen me. Think a wheel, all right?
I am thinking a wheel.
Bravo, so you can also think, instead of being Barbary ape and repeating what you heard in Paris. Now
think that this wheel is stuck on a pivot, like it is a potter s wheel, and you want to turn this wheel. What
do you do?
I put my hands on it, perhaps just one finger on the rim of the wheel, I move my finger, and the wheel
turns.
You do not think you had done better to take the pivot, in the center of the wheel, and try to make it
turn?
No, it would be impossible....
So! And your Galileans or Copernicans want to have the sun in the center of the universe fixed and
making move all the great circle of the planets around, instead of thinking the movement from the great
circle of the heavens comes, while the earth remains still in the center. How could Dominus Deus put the
sun in the lowest place and the earth, corruptible and dark, among the luminous and aeternal stars?
Understand your error?
But the sun has to exist at the center of the universe! The bodies in nature need this radical fire, and it
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
must inhabit the heart of the realm to meet the needs of all the parts. Must not the cause of generation be
set in the center of everything? Has nature not placed the seed in the genitals, halfway between the head
and the feet? And are the seeds not in the center of the apple? And is the pit not in the middle of the
peach? And so the earth, which needs the light and heat of that fire, moves around it, to receive the solar
virtue in all its parts. It would be ridiculous to believe the sun turns around a point that is of no use to it, it
would be like saying, on seeing a roast lark, that to cook it you made the hearth revolve around it.
Ah so? Then when the bishop moves around the church to bless it with the thurible, you would have the
church re-volve around the bishop? The sun can turn because it is of igneous element. And you well
know that fire flies and moves and is never still. Have you ever seen the mountains move? Then how
does the earth move?
The sun s rays, striking it, make it turn, as you can make a ball spin by striking it with your hand, and
even by breathing on it if the ball is little.... And finally, would you have God make the sun race, when it is
four hundred thirty-four times bigger than the earth, only to ripen our cabbages?
To give the greatest theatrical emphasis to this last objec-tion, Roberto wanted to point his finger at
Father Caspar, so he extended his arm and pushed with his foot to make himself good and visible, a bit
farther from the side of the ship. In this movement his other hand released its grip, his head moved back,
and Roberto finished underwater, unable to make use of the rope, now too slack, to return to the
surface, as planned. He then behaved like all threatened with drowning; he made uncoordinated
movements and swallowed even more water, until Father Caspar tautened the rope properly, pulling him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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them.
But who ever told you the comets pass in the ethereal regions? The comets pass in the sublunary
region, and here we have air, as you can see for yourself.
Nothing moves that is not body. The heavens move. Hence they are body.
In order to talk nonsensical, you even become Aristote-lian. But I know why you say this. You want air
to be also in the heavens, then there is no more differentia between above and below, all turns, and the
earth moves its derriere like a strumpet.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
But we see every night the stars in a different posi-tion....
Richtig. De facto they move.
Wait. I have not finished. You would have the sun and all the stars, which are enormous bodies, make a
revolution around the earth every twenty-four hours, and the fixed stars, or, rather, the great ring in which
they are set, should travel more than twenty-seven thousand times two hundred million leagues? For this
is what would have to happen if the earth did not make a complete revolution in twenty-four hours. How
can the fixed stars move so fast? Their inhabitants would be dizzy!
If they have any inhabitants. But this is petitio principii.
And he pointed out that it was easy to invent an argument in favor of the movement of the sun, whereas
there were far more arguments against the movement of the earth.
I know well, Roberto replied, that Ecclesiastes says terra autem in aeternum stat, sol oritur, and that
Joshua stopped the sun and not the earth. But you yourself have taught me that if we take the Bible
literally, there would have been light before the creation of the sun. So the Holy Book must be read with
a grain of salt, and even Saint Augustine knew that it often speaks more allegorico....
Father Caspar smiled and reminded him that the Jesuits had long ago given up defeating their adversaries
with Scrip-tural cavils; now they used incontrovertible arguments based on astronomy, on sense, on
mathematical and physical reasons.
What reasons, ad exemplum? Roberto asked, scraping away a bit of grease from his belly.
Ad exemplum, Father Caspar replied, irked, with the powerful Argument of the Wheel: Now you
listen me. Think a wheel, all right?
I am thinking a wheel.
Bravo, so you can also think, instead of being Barbary ape and repeating what you heard in Paris. Now
think that this wheel is stuck on a pivot, like it is a potter s wheel, and you want to turn this wheel. What
do you do?
I put my hands on it, perhaps just one finger on the rim of the wheel, I move my finger, and the wheel
turns.
You do not think you had done better to take the pivot, in the center of the wheel, and try to make it
turn?
No, it would be impossible....
So! And your Galileans or Copernicans want to have the sun in the center of the universe fixed and
making move all the great circle of the planets around, instead of thinking the movement from the great
circle of the heavens comes, while the earth remains still in the center. How could Dominus Deus put the
sun in the lowest place and the earth, corruptible and dark, among the luminous and aeternal stars?
Understand your error?
But the sun has to exist at the center of the universe! The bodies in nature need this radical fire, and it
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
must inhabit the heart of the realm to meet the needs of all the parts. Must not the cause of generation be
set in the center of everything? Has nature not placed the seed in the genitals, halfway between the head
and the feet? And are the seeds not in the center of the apple? And is the pit not in the middle of the
peach? And so the earth, which needs the light and heat of that fire, moves around it, to receive the solar
virtue in all its parts. It would be ridiculous to believe the sun turns around a point that is of no use to it, it
would be like saying, on seeing a roast lark, that to cook it you made the hearth revolve around it.
Ah so? Then when the bishop moves around the church to bless it with the thurible, you would have the
church re-volve around the bishop? The sun can turn because it is of igneous element. And you well
know that fire flies and moves and is never still. Have you ever seen the mountains move? Then how
does the earth move?
The sun s rays, striking it, make it turn, as you can make a ball spin by striking it with your hand, and
even by breathing on it if the ball is little.... And finally, would you have God make the sun race, when it is
four hundred thirty-four times bigger than the earth, only to ripen our cabbages?
To give the greatest theatrical emphasis to this last objec-tion, Roberto wanted to point his finger at
Father Caspar, so he extended his arm and pushed with his foot to make himself good and visible, a bit
farther from the side of the ship. In this movement his other hand released its grip, his head moved back,
and Roberto finished underwater, unable to make use of the rope, now too slack, to return to the
surface, as planned. He then behaved like all threatened with drowning; he made uncoordinated
movements and swallowed even more water, until Father Caspar tautened the rope properly, pulling him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]