Tis likely then that she had some other end which moved her to produce this variety, and this in all probability was her intent to make it a fit body for habitation with the same conveniencies of sea and land, as this inferiour world doth partake of. For since the Moone is such a vast, such a solid and opacous body like our earth (as was above proved) why may it not be probable, that those thinner and thicker parts appearing in her, doe shew the difference betwixt the sea and land in that other world; and Galilæus doubts not, but that if our earth were visible at the same distance, there would be the like appearance of it.
As for the forme of those spots, some of the vulgar thinke they represent a man, and the Poets guesse ’tis the boy Endimion, whose company shee loves so well, that shee carries him with her, others will have it onely to be the face of a man as the Moone is usually pictured, but Albertus thinkes rather, that it represents a Lyon with his taile towards the East, and his head the West, and * Eusebius Nioremb. Hist. Nat. lib. 8. c. 15. *some others have thought it to be very much like a Fox, & certainly ’tis as much like a Lyon as that in the Zodiake, or as Vrsa major is like a Beare.
I should guesse that it represents one of these as well as another, and any thing else as well as any of these, since ’tis but a strong imagination, which fancies such images as schoole-boyes usually doe in the markes of a wall, whereas there is not any such similitude in the spots themselves, which rather like our Sea, in respect of the land, appeares under a rugged and confused figure, and doth not represent any distinct image, so that both in respect of the matter and the forme it may be probable enough, that those spots and brighter parts may shew the distinction betwixt the Sea and Land in that other world.
Proposition 8.
The spots represent the Sea, and the brighter parts the Land.
When I first compared the nature of our earth and water with those appearances in the Moone; I concluded contrary to the proposition, that the brighter parts represented the water, and the spots the land; of this opinion likewise was Keplar at the first; but my second thoughts, and the reading of others, Opt. Astro. c. 6. num. 9.
Dissert. cum nuncio Gal. have now convinced me (as after he was) of the truth of that Proposition which I have now set downe. But before I come to the confirmation of it, I shall mention those scruples which at first made mee doubt of the truth of this opinion.
1. It may be objected, ’tis probable, if there be any such sea and land as ours, that it bears some proportion and similitude with ours: but now this Proposition takes away all likenesse betwixt them, for whereas the superficies of our earth is but the third part of the whole surface in the globe, two parts being overspread with the water (as Scaliger Exercit. 38. observes) yet here according to this opinion, the Sea should be lesse then the Land, since there is not so much of the bespotted, as ther is of the enlightened parts, wherefore ’tis probable, that either there is no such thing at all, or else that the brighter parts are the Sea.
2. The water, by reason of the smoothnesse of its superficies, seemes better able to reflect the Sun beames then the earth, which in most places is so full of ruggednesse of grasse and trees, and such like impediments of reflection, and besides, cõmon experience shewes, that the water shines with a greater and more glorious brightnesse then the earth, therefore it should seeme that the spots are the earth, and the brighter parts the water.
But to the first it may be answered.
1. There is no great probability in this consequence, that because ’tis so with us, therefore it must be so with the parts of the Moone, for since there is such a difference betwixt them in divers other respects, they may not, perhaps, agree in this.