Archimedes Texts

422

Mathematician) that the motion of the Earth meeting with the
motion of the Lunar Orb, the concurrence of them occasioneth
the Ebbing and Flowing, is an absolute vanity, not onely be
cause it is not exprest, nor seen how it should so happen, but the
falsity is obvious, for that the Revolution of the Earth is not con
trary to the motion of the Moon, but is towards the same way.
So that all that hath been hitherto said, and imagined by others,
is, in my judgment, altogether invalid. But amongst all the
famous men that have philosophated upon this admirable effect

of Nature, I more wonder at Kepler than any of the rest, who
being of a free and piercing wit, and having the motion ascri
bed to the Earth, before him, hath for all that given his ear and
assent to the Moons predominancy over the Water, and to oc
cult properties, and such like trifles.

One single moti
on of the terrestri
al Globe sufficeth
not to produce the
Ebbing & Flowing

SAGR. I am of opinion, that to these more spaculative per
sons the same happened, that at present befalls me, namely, the
not understanding the intricate commixtion of the three Periods
Annual, Monethly, and Diurnal; And how their causes should
seem to depend on the Sun, and on the Moon, without the Suns
or Moons having any thing to do with the Water; a businesse,
for the full understanding of which I stand in need of a little
longer time to consider thereof, which the novelty and difficulty
of it hath hitherto hindred me from doing: but I despair not, but
that when I return in my solitude and silence to ruminate that
which remaineth in my fancy, not very well digested, I shall
make it my own. We have now, from these four dayes Dis
course, great attestations, in favour of the Copernican Systeme,
amongst which these three taken: the first, from the Stations and
Retrogradations of the Planets, and from their approaches, and
recessions from the Earth; the second, from the Suns revolving
in it self, and from what is observed in its spots; the third, from
the Ebbing and Flowing of the Sea do shew very rational and
concluding.

SALV. To which also haply, in short, one might adde a
fourth, and peradventure a fifth; a fourth, I say, taken from
the fixed stars, seeing that in them, upon exact observations, those
minute mutations appear, that Copernicus thought to have been
insensible. There starts up, at this instant, a fifth novelty, from
which one may argue mobility in the Terrestrial Globe, by

means of that which the most Illustrious Signore Cæsare, of the
noble Family of the Marsilii of Bologna, and a Lyncean Aca
demick, discovereth with much ingenuity, who in a very learned
Tract of his, sheweth very particularly how that he had observed
a continual mutation, though very slow in the Meridian line,
of which Treatise, at length, with amazement, perused by me,