And least any scruple might remaine unanswered, or you might thinke the men who beheld all this though they might be skilfull, yet they came with credulous minds, and so were more easie to be deluded. He addes that it was shewed, Cap. 5. vius qui ad experimenta hæc contradicendi animo accesserant.
To such as were come with a great deale of prejudice, and an intent of contradiction.
Thus you may see the certainety of those experiments which were taken by this glasse. I have spoken the more concerning it, because I shall borrow many things in my farther discourse, from those discoveries which were made by it.
I have now cited such Authors both ancient and moderne, who have directly maintained the same opinion. I told you likewise in the proposition that it might probably be deduced from the tenent of others: such were Aristarchus, Philolaus and Copernicus, with many other later writers who assented to their hypothesis, so Ioach. Rlelicus, David Origanus, Lansbergius, Guil. Gilbert, and (if I may believe Campanella) Apologia pro Galilæo. Innumeri alii Angli & Galli. Very many others both English and French, all who affirmed our Earth to be one of the Planets, and the Sunne to bee the Centre of all, about which the heavenly bodies did move, and how horrid soever this may seeme at the first, yet is it likely enough to be true, nor is there any maxime or observation in Opticks (saith Pena) that can disprove it.
Now if our earth were one of the Planets (as it is according to them) then why may not another of the Planets be an earth?
Thus have I shewed you the truth of this proposition: Before I proceede farther, ’tis requisite that I informe the Reader, what method I shall follow in the proving of this chiefe assertion, that there is a World in the Moone.
The order by which I shall bee guided will be that which Aristotle à 1º. cap. ad 10m. uses in his booke De mundo (if that booke were his.)
First, περὶ τῶν ἐν αὐτῇ of those chiefe parts which are in it; not the elementary and æthereall (as he doth there) since this doth not belong to the elementary controversie, but of the Sea and Land, &c. Secondly, περὶ αὐτὴν παθῶν, of those things which are extrinsecall to it, as the seasons, meteors and inhabitants.
Proposition 7.
That those spots and brighter parts which by our sight may be distinguished in the Moone, doe shew the difference betwixt the Sea and Land in that other World.