True indeed, such places as these keepe their neighbours poore, as beeing most barren, but yet they preserve them safe, as being most strong, witnesse our unconquered Wales and Scotland, whose greatest protection hath beene the naturall strength of their Countrey, so fortified with Mountaines, that these have alwaies been unto them sure retraites from the violence and oppression of others, wherefore a good Authour doth rightly call them natures bulwarkes cast up at God Almighties owne charges, the scornes and curbs of victorious armies, which made the Barbarians in Curtius so confident of their owne safety, when they were once retired to an inaccessible mountaine, that when Alexanders Legate had brought them to a parley and perswading them to yeeld, told them of his masters victories, what Seas and Wildernesses hee had passed, they replyed that all that might be, but could Alexander fly too? Over the Seas he might have ships, and over the land horses, but hee must have wings before he could get up thither. Such safety did those barbarous nations conceive in the mountaines whereunto they were retyred, certainely then such usefull parts were not the effect of mans sinne, or produced by the Worlds curse the flood, but rather at the first created by the goodnesse and providence of the Almighty.

So that if I intend to prove that the Moone is such a habitable world as this is, ’tis requisite that I shew it to have the same conveniences of habitation as this hath, and here if some Rabbi or Chymicke were to handle the point they would first prove it out of Scripture, from that place in Moses his blessing, Deut. 33. 15 where hee speakes of the ancient mountaines and lasting hils, Deut. 33 הררי קדם וגבעות עולם for having immediately before mentioned those blessings which should happen unto Ioseph by the influence of the Moone, he does presently exegetically iterate thẽ in blessing him with the chiefe things of the ancient Mountaines and lasting hils; you may also see the same expression used in Iacobs blessing of Ioseph. Gen. 49. 26

But however we may deale pro or con in Philosophy, yet we must not jest with divine truths, or bring Scripture to patronize any fancy of our owne, though, perhaps, it be truth. For the better proofe of this proposition, I might here cite the testimony of Diodorus, who thought the Moone to bee full of rugged places, vel ut terrestribus tumulis superciliosam, but he erred much in some circumstances of this opinion, especially where he saies, there is an Iland amongst the Hyperboreans, wherein those hils may to the eye bee plainely discovered, and for this reason. * Lect. ant. l. 1. c. 15.
Plut. de plac. l. 2. c. 25.
De cœlo. l. 2. p. 49. *Cælius calls him a fabulous Writer, but you may see more expresse authority for the proofe of this in the opinions of Anaxagoras and Democritus, who held that this Planet was full of champion grounds, mountains and vallies, and this seemed likewise probable unto Augustinus Nifus, whose words are these: Forsitan non est remotum dicere, lunæ partes esse diversas, veluti sunt partes terræ, quarum aliæ sunt vallosæ, aliæ montosæ, ex quarum differentia effici potest facies illa lunæ; nec est rationi dissonum, nam luna est corpus imperfectè Sphæricum, cum sit corpus ab ultimo cœlo elongatum, ut supra dixit Aristoteles.

Perhaps, it would not be amisse to say that the parts of the Moone were divers, as the parts of this earth, whereof some are vallies, and some mountaines, from the difference of which, some spots in the Moone may proceed, nor is this against reason, for that Planet cannot be perfectly sphericall, since ’tis so remote a body from the first orbe, as Aristotle had said before.

You may see this truth assented unto by Blancanus the Jesuit, De Mundi fab. pars 3ª. c. 4.
Astron. Opt. c. 6. num 9. that the division of her enlightened part from the shaded, was made by a and by him confirmed with with divers reasons. Keplar hath observed in the Moones eclipses, crooked unequall line, of which there cannot be any probable cause conceived, unlesse it did arise from the ruggednesse of that planet, for it cannot at all be produc’d from the shade of any mountains here upon earth, because these would be so lessned before they could reach so high in a conicall shadow, that they would not be at all sensible unto us (as might easily be demonstrated) nor can it be conceived what reason of this difference there should be in the Sunne. Wherefore there being no other body that hath any thing to doe in eclipses, we must necessarily conclude, that it is caused by a variety of parts in the Moone it selfe, and what can there be but its gibbosities? Now if you should aske a reason why there should be such a similitude of these in that Planet, the same Keplar shall jest you out an answere, for supposing (saith he) those inhabitants are bigger than any of us in the same proportion, as their daies are longer than ours, viz. by fifteen times it may bee for want of stones to erect such vast houses as were requisite for their bodies, they are faine to digge great and round hollowes in the earth, where they may both procure water for their thirst, and turning about with the shade, may avoid those great heats which otherwise they would be lyable unto; or if you will give Cæsar la Galla leave to guesse in the same manner, he would rather think that those thirsty nations cast up so many and so great heaps of earth in digging of their wine cellars, but this onely by the way.

I shall next produce the eye-witnesse of Galilæus, Nuncius Sydereus. on which I most of all depend for the proofe of this Proposition, when he beheld the new Moone through his perspective, it appeared to him under a rugged and spotted figure, seeming to have the darker and enlightned parts divided by a tortuous line, having some parcels of light at a good distance from the other, and this difference is so remarkable, that you may easily perceive it through one of those ordinary perspectives, which are commonly sold amongst us, but for your better apprehending of what I deliver, I will set downe the Figure as I find it in Galilæus:

Suppose ABCD to represent the appearance of the Moones body being in a sextile, you may see some brighter parts separated at a pretty distance from the other, which can bee nothing else but a reflexion of the Sunne-beames upon some parts that are higher then the rest, and those obscure gibbosities which stand out towards the enlightened parts must bee such hollow and deepe places whereto the rayes cannot reach, but when the Moone is got further off from the Sunne, and come to that fulnesse, as this line BD doth represent her under, then doe these parts also receive an equall light, excepting onely that difference which doth appeare betwixt their sea and land. And if you do consider how any rugged body would appeare, being enlightned, you would easily conceive that it must necessarily seeme under some such gibbous unequall forme, as the Moone is here represented. Now for the infallibility of these appearances, I shall referre the reader to that which hath beene said in the 6th Proposition.

But Cæsar la Galla affirmes, that all these appearances may consist with a plaine superficies, if wee suppose the parts of the body to be some of them, Diaphanous, and some opacous; and if you object that the light which is conveyed to any diaphanous part in a plaine superficies must be by a continued line, whereas here there appeare many brighter parts among the obscure at some distance from the rest. To this he answers, it may arise from some secret conveyances and channels within her body, that doe consist of a more diaphanous matter which being covered over with an opacious superficies, the light passing through them may breake out a great way off, whereas the other parts betwixt may still remaine darke. Just as the River Arethusa in Sicile which runnes under ground for a great way, and afterwards breakes out againe. But because this is one of the chiefest fancies whereby hee thinkes hee hath fully answered the arguments of this opinion, I will therefore set downe his answere in his owne words, lest the Reader might suspect more in them then I have expressed. Cap. 11. Non est impossibile cœcos ductus diaphani & perspicui corporis, sed opacâ superficie protendi, usque in diaphanam aliquam ex profundo in superficiem, emergentem partem, per quos ductus lumen longo postmodum interstitio erumpat, &c. But I reply, if the superficies betwixt these two enlightened parts remaine darke because of its opacity, then would it alwaies be darke, and the Sunne could not make it partake of light more then it could of perspicuity: But this contradicts all experience as you may see in Galilæus, who affirmes that when the Sunne comes nearer to his opposition, then that which is betwixt them, both is enlightned as well as either. Nay this opposes his owne eye-witnesse, for he confesses himselfe that he saw this by the glasse. He had said before that he came to see those strange sights discovered by Galilæus his glasse with an intent of contradiction, and you may reade that confirmed in the weakenesse of this answere, which rather bewrayes an obstinate then a perswaded will, for otherwise sure hee would never have undertooke to have destroyed such certaine proofes with so groundlesse a fancy.

But it may bee objected, that ’tis almost impossible, and altogether unlikely that in the Moone there should be any mountaines so high as those observations make them, for doe but suppose according to the common principles, that the Moones diameter unto the Earths is very neere to the proportion of 2. to 7, suppose withall that the Earths diameter containes about 7000 Italian miles, and the Moones 2000 (as is commonly granted) now Galiæus hath observed that some parts have been enlightened when they were the twentieth part of the diameter distant from the common terme of illumination, so that hence it must necessarily follow that there may bee some Mountaines in the Moone so high, that they are able to cast a shadow a 100 miles off. An opinion that sounds like a prodigie or a fiction; wherefore ’tis likely that either those appearances are caused by somewhat else besides mountaines, or else those are fallible observations, from whence may follow such improbable inconceiveable consequences.