Galilei, Galileo Dialogues on two world systems 1661, tr. Salusbury, Thomas

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These are twelve indagations made by the Author at his electi­
on, amongst many which, as he saith, might be made by combi­
ning the observations of these thirteen observators. The which
twelve we may believe to be the most favourable to prove his
intention.

SAGR. I would know whether amongst the so many other in­
dagations pretermitted by the Author, there were not some that
made against him, that is, from which calculating one might find
the new star to have been above the Moon, as at the very first
sight I think we may reasonably question; in regard I see these
already produced to be so different from one another, that some
of them give me the distance of the said star from the Earth, 4, 6,
10, 100, a thousand, and an hundred thousand times bigger one
than another; so that I may well suspect that amongst those that
he did not calculate, there was some one in fauour of the adverse
party. And I guesse this to be the more probable, for that I can­
not conceive that those Astronomers the observators could want
the knowledg and practice of these computations, which I think
do not depend upon the abstrucest things in the World. And in­
deed it will seem to me a thing more than miraculous, if whilst in
these twelve investigations onely, there are some that make the
star to be distant from the Earth but a few miles, and others that
make it to be but a very fmall matter below the Moon, there are
none to be found that in favour of the contrary part do make it
so much as twenty yards above the Lunar Orb. And that which
shall be yet again more extravagant, that all those Astronomers
should have been so blind as not to have discovered that their so
apparent mistake.

SALV. Begin now to prepare your ears to hear with infinite
admiration to what excesses of confidence of ones own authority
and others folly, the desire of contradicting and shewing ones
self wiser than others, transports a man. Amongst the indaga­
tions omitted by the Author, there are such to be found as make
the new star not onely above the Moon, but above the fixed
stars also. And these are not a few, but the greater part, as you
shall see in this other paper, where I have set them down.

SAGR. But what saith the Author to these? It may be he did
not think of them?

SALV. He hath thought of them but too much: but saith, that
the observations upon which the calculations make the star to be
infinitely remote, are erroneous, and that they cannot be com­
bined to one another.