The Copernicans contended generally for the greater simplicity of their system, and the incredibility of the enormous velocity which the sphere of the fixed eters intuit have if the Ptolemaic hypothesis were true: to which it was answered, that God " doeth great things past finding out, and wonders without number;" that the earth would corrupt and putrefy without motion, whereas the heavens are in. comtptible : answer—that wind, &e. give sufficient motion; that the most moveable part of man is underneath, since he walks with his feet; whence the most unworthy part of the universe (which all parties called the earth) should be moveable : answer, that the Copernicans were absurd (as in fact they were) for taking the earth out of the centre of the universe upon an argument the force of which was derived from its being in the centre (or lowest part); also, which is theore tically true, that if the earth move, the head of a man moves faster than his feet ; that rest is nobler than motion, and ought therefore to belong to the sun, the nobler body : answer, that for the same reason the moon and all the planets ought to rest ; that the lamp of the world ought to be in the centre : answer, that a lamp is frequently hung up from a roof to enlighten the floor ; that there is a cause of motion (magnetism) in the earth : answer, that no Copernicans had examined the sun, or they might perhaps have found as good causes of motion there ; that the Hebrew word for the earth ban a root which signifies motion—which on the other side was contended to apply to the motion of animals upon its surface.
Such were the more common arguments of the Copeniicans ; others may he seen In a paper entitled ' 01d Argumenta against the alotion of the Earth,' in the' Companion to the Almanac for 1836.' We do not charge every one, either of the Ptelemaiata or Copernicans, with all the absurdities above noted ; but wo have not found one of either side free from such a priori attempts at a knowledge of the nature of things. Our countryman Bishop Wilkins has less of this sort of argument than any one except Galileo, and he deals with the scriptural objections in a very learned and able manner. He points out the absurdities into which the Fathers had fallen by a degree of literal interpretation which had become obsolete even in the days of Fromm' : how, for Instance—Basil made the moon greater than any of the stars, because Moses calls the sun and moon the two greater lights; Justin Martyr and several others supposed a vast body of water above the starry firmament; St. Augustine concludes the visible stars to be innume rable ; many fathers assert that the heavens are not round, but stretched forth as a curtain ; some that the sea not overflowing the land was not a consequence of the usual Laws of matter, but a per petual miracle ; some that the sea is higher than the Land, because it is called " alttun," translated by us " the deep ;" some that the earth is placed upon the sea ; some say that the stani.have understanding and
speech, and, according to Origen, moral responsibility. All these things follow, either at once, or by the most universally admitted species of inference, from the literal' signification of words in the sacred Scriptures. These interpretations vanished first ; those who sailed round the world destroyed the greater 'number of them ; and the abandonment of them was acquiesced in oven by those who would have nailed the earth to a Ilebrew word. Thu earth itself was next allowed to move, when Galileo had established a mechanical system which would reconcile such motion with terrestrial phenomena, as completely as that of Copernicus and Kepler with celestial. The time came when even divines might insist on this simplicity of motion in illustration of the wisdom of the architect. But the structure of the earth had not been examined; consequently when the conclusions of geological in duction began to appear, the old method was ready, the texts were forthcoming, neither was interpretation wanting, nor those who would raise an outcry against the results of examination and the investigators, because the former would not agree with the interpretation, nor the latter be fettered by its imposition. The same course will be run, with the exception only that the enemies of free inquiry and honest statement are not so numerous nor no powerful as in the 17th century, no that the effect will be less, both in extent and duration. So very slight have been the scientific attainments of the opposing party on this occasion, that it becomes those who are interested in the history of the sciences to take some measures for the preservation of their writings, since it is found that the purely theological works against the motion of the earth are extremely scarce, while only those which unite science, such as it was, with theology, are now in any degree diffused.
If we throw away all the arguments which would now be considered fantastical, we shall find the sense of both sides of the controversy contained within very narrow limits. The strength of the Copernicans lay in the simplicity with which they exhibited the celestial motions ; that of their opponents, in the then unanswerable argument of the throwing up of a stone. Both parties believed that the stone of itself would not follow the motion of the earth ; at least such was the opinion until the Galilean philosophy was fully received. Fromond shows his penetration when he says that the Copernican philosophy will finally be wrecked on this argument; had he admitted an alterna tive, and assumed either that the mechanical argument would destroy the motion of the earth, or the motion of the earth would load to an entire change in the principles of mechanical philosophy, no one would now have disagreed with him.