now recapitulate some of the arguments against the earth's motion, taking first the scriptural and afterwards the physical.
The scriptural arguments are of two kinds, Copernican and anti Copernican ; for it must be remembered that the asserters of the earth's motion, almost with one accord, admitted the Scriptures as a judge of the controversy. The following are some of the texts and arguments. We take them from Fienus, Fremond, Morin, Hesse, and Riccioli on the one side, and from their statements of their opponents' arguments, or from Wilkins, on the other.
Psalm xix. 4, 5, 6 : " In them bath he set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it." Here it is remarked that the metaphor, where it exists, is explicit, in "as a bridegroom," "as a strong man," but that the words which apply to the sun's motion are absolute assertion.
Ecclesiastes, i. 4, &c. : " One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh ; but the earth abidcth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place whence he arose. The wind goeth towards the south, and turneth about unto the north." In the Vulgate, the last sentence refers to the sun : "Oritur sol et occidit, of ad locum swum revertitur, ibique renascens gyrat per meridiem, et flectitur ad aquilenem." Jbahua, x. 12 : "Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the Bun stood still, and the moon stayed. . . So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and halted not to go down about a whole day." It was contended that the earth ought to have been made to stand still," if Joshua had been a Copernican." 2 Kings, xx. 11 : "And he brought the shadow ten degrees back wards, by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." Isaiah, xxxviii. 8 " So the sun returned ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down." Psalm xciii. 1 "The world also is stablished that it cannot be moved." Psalm civ. 5: "Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever." Job, ix. 6, &c. : " Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble ; which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not, and sealeth up the stars." Job, xxxviii. 4, &c.: " Where west thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? ... Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened ? or who laid the corner-stone thereof ? . . . Where is the way
where light dwelleth ? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof ? ' The Copernicans cited the preceding, Job, ix. 6, and the following, Psalm xcvii. 4, " The earth saw, and trembled ; " and Psalm xcviii. 7, which in the English version, is " Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof, the world, and they that dwell therein;" but in the Vulgate, " Moveatur mare et plenitude ejus, orbis terrarum, et universi qui habitant in eo." The Ptelemaists replied, with reason, that these texts evidently imply a violent and unusual motion, while all the others speak of stability as the common order of things. We look upon Fromond as, next to Riccioli, the most learned and sensible of the anti-movement party, while Lansberg is certainly not the least of the Copernicans. Yet the latter, to fill up the immense void between Saturn and the fixed stars, states that it is crowded with spirits good and evil, employed in their vocations : the former meets him by the following argument. By the universal consent of theologians, hell is at the centre of the earth; the creed says that Jesus Christ" descended into hell; " and St. Paul, in Ephesians, iv. 9, that he " descended into the lower parts of .the earth." The empyreal heaven, and the habitation of the blessed, must be as far as possible from hell; but the former was, by consent of theologians, at the circumference of the universe ; therefore, says Fromond, the earth must be at the centre. But Morinus outddes the rest. From the creed, he says, it appears that Jesus Christ " ascended into heaven ; " and from the first chapter of Acts, that he was " taken up." It is generally thought that the hour of the ascension was noon, at which time, according to the Coper nicans, the heads of persons on the earth are towards the centre of the system (the sun). Consequently it was not an ascent, but a descent, for to go towards the centre is to descend. I know, says Morin, that the Copernicans have a subterfuge and a fallacy, for they say that the ascent was an ascent with respect to the earth only ; and he goes on to show what shuffling knaves they were, for so direct a perversion of plain words. It is, however, but fair to the anti-Copernican party to add that Riccioli, by far the most learned of all of them, has not thought Morinus worthy of one word of mention in his list* of writers on the subject.