my Defeets.

а.

and Leisure, I hope to compenfate for

Búr however,what is here wanting in my own, is sufficiently made up from the Observations of others. OF which the learned World hath good store since the Invention of the Telescope; which as it hath made ample discoveries of the Works of God, lo hach laid open a new, and a far more grand and noble fcene of thofe Works than the World before dreamt of, and afforded us a far more Rational Systeme of the Heavens and the Univerfe, than was before entertained. · And forasmuch as I have frequent occasions in my following Book to speak of, and according to this and some of the other Systemes, it is necessary I should, by way of Preface, give some account of them, to enable such persons to read my Book as are unacquainted with Astronomical

1

matters. 10

AMONG

Among all the various Systemes, I need take notice only of three, the Ptolemaick, the Copernican, and the New Systeme. Of each of which in their Order.

Of the Ptolemaick Systeme. In the Ptolemaick Systeme the Earth and Waters are supposed to be in the Center of the Universe ; next to which is the Element of Air and next above that is the Element of Fire: next that the Orb of Mercury ; then that of Venus, then that of the Sun; and above the Sun's Orb, those of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn; and above them all the Firmament or Orb of the Fixt Stars; then the Crystalline Orbs; and lastly the Cætum Empyreum, or Heaven of Heavens. All these massy Orbs, and vaft Bodies born by them, are, in this Systeme, fuppofed to move round the terraqueous Globe once in 24

hours: and besides that,in fome other certain periodical times. For the effeeting of which Motions, they were forced to contrive fuch Circles as they called Eccentricks and Epicycles,croffing and interfering with one another which I could not represent in so narrow a compass as Fig. 1. is, which is a Scheme of this Ptolemaick Systeme ; which is aniversally maintained by the Periparetick Philosophers.

Of the Copernican Systeme.

The next Systeme is the Pythagorean or Copernican, being invented as fome imagine by Pythagoras himself. Bur Diogenes Laertius( 1 )exprefly faith, That Pythagoras's opinion was, That the World was round, containing the Earth in the midst of it

. And by Pliny's account (2) of Pythagoras his Distan.

(!) Lib. 8. in Pythagora,
(2) Naţ. Hift. L. 2. C. 21, 22.

çes,

çes, and Orders of the Planers, this seems to have been his opinion, But the same Laertius( 3 )affirms Philolaus the Pythagorean τίω Γλω κανεις κατά Κύκλος, πρώτου επεν. οι 3, Ικέτων Συρακέσιον φασίν ; to have been the first that said the Earth was moved in a Circle: but some say Hicetas the Syracusian. $o Plutarch in his Life of Numa, speaking of Numa's building The Temple of Vesta, faith, he built it round, and thai a continual fire was kept therein in imitation of the figure of the Earth, or rather of the whole World it self, the middle of which the Pythagoreans (not Pythagoras) take to be the Seat of Fire.

Tois Systeme (whoever was the Inventer of it) Copernicus, a Canon of Tourain restored about the beginning of the 15th Century and was followed therein by many considerable men,

(3) Ibid. in Philolao.

as

as Rheticus, Maftlinus, Kepler, Rothman, Bullialdus, Lansberge, Herigonius

, Schickard, Gafsendus, Galilæo, and others. The last of which (by the ill will and instigation of Pope Urban VIII. as 'tis supposed) had the misforo tune to fall under the censure of, and to have his Copernican Tenets condemned by the Inquisition, and was forced to abjure them. The particulars of which, if the Reader hath a mind to see, he may find them in Riccioli's Almagest. (4).

ACCORDING to this Systeme, the Sun is supposed to be in the Center, and the Heavens and Earth to revolve round about him according to their several Periods: first Mercury in near 88 days; then Venus in somewhat above 224 days; then the Earth, with its Satellite the Moon, in

Lib. 9. Sea. 4. Cap. 40,

369