But yet there are many fabulous relations of such things as have dropped thence. There is a tale of the Nemean Lyon that Hercules slew, which first rushing among the heards out of his unknowne den in the Mountaine of Cytheron in Bœotia, the credulous people thought he was sent from their Goddesse the Moone. And if a whirle-winde did chance to snatch any thing up, and afterwards raine it downe againe, the ignorant multitude are apt to believe that it dropt from Heaven. Thus Avicenna relates the story of a Calfe which fell downe in a storme, the beholders thinking it a Moone-calfe, and that it fell thence. So Cardan travelling upon the Apennine Mountaines, a sudden blast tooke off his hat, which if it had beene carryed farre, he thinkes the peasants who had perceived it to fall, would have sworne it had rained hats. After some such manner many of our prodigies come to passe, and the people are willing to believe anything, which they may relate to others as a very strange and wonderfull event. I doubt not but the Trojan Palladium, the Romane Minerva, and our Ladies Church at Loretto, with many sacred reliques preserved by the Papists might droppe from the Moone as well as any of these.
But it may be againe objected, suppose there were a bullet shot up in that world, would not the Moone runne away from it, before it could fall downe, since the motion of her body (being every day round our earth) is farre swifter than the other, and so the bullet must be left behinde, and at length fall downe to us? To this I answer,
1. If a bullet could be shot so farre till it came to the circumference of those things which belong to our center, then it would fall downe to us.
2. Though there were some heavie body a great height in that ayer, yet would the motion of its centre by an attractive vertue still hold it within its convenient distance, so that whether their earth moved or stood still, yet would the same violence cast a body from it equally farre. That I may the plainer expresse my meaning, I will set downe this Diagramme.
Suppose this earth were A, which was to move in the circle C, D. and let the bullet be supposed at B. within its proper verge; I say, whether this earth did stand stil or move swiftly towards D, yet the bullet would still keepe at the same distance by reason of that Magneticke vertue of the center (if I may so speake) whereby all things within its spheare are attracted with it. So that the violence to the bullet, being nothing else but that whereby ’tis removed from its center, therefore an equall violence can carry a body from its proper place, but at an equall distance whether or no the center stand still or move.
The impartiall Reader may finde sufficient satisfaction for this and such other arguments as may be urged against the motion of that earth in the writings of Capernicus and his followers, unto whom for brevities sake I will referre them.
Proposition 9.
That there are high Mountaines, deepe vallies, and spacious plains in the body of the Moone.
Though there are some who thinke Mountaines to bee a deformity in the earth, as if they were either beate up by the flood, or else cast up like so many heaps of rubbish left at the creation, yet if well considered, they will be found as much to conduce to the beauty and conveniency of the universe as any of the other parts. Nature (saith Pliny) Nat. hist. l. 36. c. 1. purposely framed them for many excellent uses: partly to tame the violence of greater Rivers, to strengthen certaine joynts within the veines and bowels of the earth, to breake the force of the Seas inundation, and for the safety of the earths inhabitants, whether beasts or men. That they make much for the protection of beasts the Psalmist Psal. 104. v. 18. testifies, The highest hils are a refuge for the wilde Goats, and the rockes for Conies. The Kingly Prophet had learned the safety of these by his owne experience, when he also was faine to make a mountaine his refuge from the fury of his Master Saul, who persecuted him in the wildernesse.