Archimedes Texts

110
truth agreeth with another, and all conspire to render each other
inexpugnable!

SAGR. What pity it is that Guns were not used in Aristotles
age, he would with help of them have easily battered down ig
norance, and spoke without hæsitation of these mundane points.

SALV. I am very glad that these reasons are new unto you, that
so you may not rest in the opinion of the major part of Peripate
ticks, who believe, that if any one forsakes the Doctrine of Ari
stotle, it is because they did not understand or rightly apprehend
his demonstrations. But you may expect to hear of other Novel

ties, and you shall see the followers of this new Systeme produce a
gainst themselves observations, experiences, and reasons of farre
greater force than those alledged by Aristotle, Ptolomy, and other
opposers of the same conclusions, and by this means you shall come
to ascertain your self that they were not induced through want of
knowledge or experience to follow that opinion.

Copernicus his
followers are not
moved through ig
nor ance of the ar
guments on the o
ther part.

SAGR. It is requisite that upon this occasion I relate unto you
some accidents that befell me, so soon as I first began to hear speak
of this new doctrine. Being very young, and having scarcely fi
nished my course of Philosophy, which I left off, as being set upon
other employments, there chanced to come into these parts a cer
tain Foreigner of Rostock, whose name, as I remember, was Chri-

stianus Vurstitius, a follower of Copernicus, who in an Academy
made two or three Lectures upon this point, to whom many flock't
as Auditors; but I thinking they went more for the novelty of the
subject than otherwise, did not go to hear him: for I had conclu
ded with my self that that opinion could be no other than a solemn
madnesse. And questioning some of those who had been there, I
perceived they all made a jest thereof, execpt one, who told me
that the businesse was not altogether to be laugh't at, and because
this man was reputed by me to be very intelligent and wary, I re
pented that I was not there, and began from that time forward as
oft as I met with any one of the Copernican perswasion, to demand
of them, if they had been alwayes of the same judgment; and of as
many as I examined, I found not so much as one, who told me not
that he had been a long time of the contrary opinion, but to have
changed it for this, as convinced by the strength of the reasons pro
ving the same: and afterwards questioning them, one by one; to
see whether they were well possest of the reasons of the other side;

I found them all to be very ready and perfect in them; so that I
could not truly say, that they had took up this opinion out of ig
norance, vanity, or to shew the acutenesse of their wits. On the
contrary, of as many of the Peripateticks and Ptolomeans as I
have asked (and out of curiosity I have talked with many) what
pains they had taken in the Book of Copernicus, I found very