"The.: What arguments do they rely on who hold that the earth is revolved and that the sun forsooth is still?
"Mys.: Because the comprehension of the human mind cannot grasp the incredible speed of the heavenly spheres and especially of the tenth sphere which must be ten times greater than that of the eighth, for in twenty-four hours it must traverse 469,562,845 miles, so that the earth seems like a dot in the universe. This is the chief argument. Besides this, we get rid entirely of epicycles in representing the motions of the planets and what is taught concerning the motion of trepidation in the eighth sphere vanishes. Also, there is no need for the ninth and tenth spheres. There is one argument which they have omitted but which seems to me more efficacious than any, viz.: rest is nobler than movement, and that celestial and divine things have a stable nature while elemental things have motion, disturbance and unrest; therefore it seems more probable that the latter move rather than the former. But while serious absurdities result from the idea of Eudoxus, far more serious ones result from that of Copernicus.
"The.: What are these absurdities?
"Mys.: Eudoxus knew nothing of trepidation, so his idea seems to be less in error. But Copernicus, in order to uphold his own hypothesis, claims the earth has three motions, its diurnal and annual ones, and trepidation; if we add to these the pull of weight towards the center, we are attributing four natural motions to one and the same body. If this is granted, then the very foundations of physics must fall into ruins; for all are agreed upon this that each natural body has but one motion of its own, and that all others are said to be either violent or voluntary. Therefore, since he claims the earth is agitated by four motions, one only can be its own, the others must be confessedly violent; yet nothing violent in nature can endure continuously. Furthermore the earth is not moved by water, much less by the motion of air or fire in the way we have stated the heavens are moved by the revolutions of the enveloping heavens. Copernicus further does not claim that all the heavens are immobile but that some are moved, that is, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. But why such diversity? No one in his senses, or imbued with the slightest knowledge of physics, will ever think that the earth, heavy and unwieldy from its own weight and mass, staggers up and down around its own center and that of the sun; for at the slightest jar of the earth, we would see cities and fortresses, towns and mountains thrown down. A certain courtier Aulicus, when some astrologer in court was upholding Copernicus's idea before Duke Albert of Prussia, turning to the servant who was pouring the Falernian, said: "Take care that the flagon is not spilled."[201] For if the earth were to be moved, neither an arrow shot straight up, nor a stone dropped from the top of a tower would fall perpendicularly, but either ahead or behind. With this argument Ptolemy refuted Eudoxus. But if we search into the secrets of the Hebrews and penetrate their sacred sanctuaries, all these arguments can easily be confirmed; for when the Lord of Wisdom said the sun swept in its swift course from the eastern shore to the west, he added this: Terra vero stat æternam. Lastly, all things on finding places suitable to their natures, remain there, as Aristotle writes. Since therefore the earth has been alloted a place fitting its nature, it cannot be whirled around by other motion than its own.
"The.: I certainly agree to all the rest with you, but Aristotle's law I think involves a paralogism, for by this argument the heavens should be immobile since they are in a place fitting their nature.
"Mys.: You argue subtly indeed, but in truth this argument does not seem necessary to me; for what Aristotle admitted, that, while forsooth all the parts of the firmament changed their places, the firmament as a whole did not, is exceedingly absurd. For either the whole heaven is at rest or the whole heaven is moved. The senses themselves disprove that it is at rest; therefore it is moved. For it does not follow that if a body is not moved away from its place, it is not moved in that place. Furthermore, since we have the most certain proof of the movement of trepidation, not only all the parts of the firmament, but also the eight spheres, must necessarily leave their places and move up and down, forward and back."[202]
This was the opinion of a profound thinker and experienced man of affairs living when Tycho Brahe and Bruno were still alive and Kepler and Galileo were beginning their astronomical investigations. But he was not alone in his views, as we shall see; for at the close of the sixteenth century, the Copernican doctrine had few avowed supporters. The Roman Church was still indifferent; the Protestants clinging to the literal interpretation of the Bible were openly antagonistic; the professors as a whole were too Aristotelian to accept or pay much attention to this novelty, except Kepler and his teacher Mæstlin (though the latter refused to uphold it in his textbook);[203] while astronomers and mathematicians who realized the insuperable objections to the Ptolemaic conception, welcomed the Tychonic system as a via media; and the common folk, if they heard of it at all, must have ridiculed it because it was so plainly opposed to what they saw in the heavens every day. In the same way their intellectual superiors exclaimed at the "delirium" of those supporting such a notion.[204] One thinker, however was to see far more in the doctrine than Copernicus himself had conceived, and by Giordano Bruno the Roman Church was to be aroused.