COSMOS, VOL. II - World eBook Library

688 COSMOS.
ignorant of all mathematical science, should take upon themselves
to pronounce judgment on his work through an inten-
tional distortion of any passage in the holy Scriptures
(propter aliqucm locum scripturce male ad situm proposition
detortum,} he should despise so presumptuous an attack. It
was, indeed, universally known that the celebrated Lactantius,
who however could not be reckoned among mathematicians,
had spoken childishly (pueriliter) of the form of the
earth, deriding those who held it to be spherical. On mathematical
subjects one should write only to mathematicians. In
order to show that, deeply penetrated with the truth of his
own deductions, he had no cause to fear the judgment that
might be passed upon him, he turned his prayers from a
remote corner of the earth to the head of the Church, begging
that he would protect him from the assaults of calumny, since
the Church itself would derive advantage from his investigations
on the length of the year, and the movements of the moon."
Astrology and improvements in the calendar long procured
protection for astronomy from the secular and ecclesiastical
powers, as chemistry and botany were long esteemed as purely
subservient auxiliaries to the science of medicine.
The strong and free expressions employed by Copernicus
sufficiently refute the old opinion, that he advanced the
system wrhich bears his immortal name as an hypothesis convenient
for making astronomical calculations, and one which
might be devoid of foundation.
"
By 110 other arrangement,"
he exclaims with enthusiasm, " have I been able to find so
admirable a symmetry of the universe, and so harmonious a
connection of orbits, as by placing the lamp of the world,
(lucernam mundi,} the sun, in the midst of the beautiful temple of
nature as on a kingly throne, ruling the whole family of circling
stars that revolve around him (circumagentem gubernam astrorum
familiam.y* Even the idea of universal gravitation or
* Quis enim in hoc pulcherrimo templo lampadem hanc in alio vel
meliori loco poneret, quam unde totum simul possit illuminare? Si-
quidem non inepte quidam lucernam mundi, alii mentem, alii rectorem
vocant. Trismegistus visibilem Deum, Soplioclis Electra intuentem
omnia. Ita profecto tanquam in solio regali Sol residens circuma-
gentem gubernat Astrorum familiam :
Tellus quoque minime fraudatur
lunari ministerio, sed ut .Aristoteles de animalibus ait, maximam Luna
cum terra cognationem habet. Concepit interea a Sole terra, et impregnatur
annuo partu. Invenimus igitur sub hac ordinatione admi-