3. I may adde the like argument taken from another observation which will be easily tried and granted. When the Sunne is eclipsed, wee discerne the Moone as shee is in her owne naturall bignesse, but then she appeares somewhat lesse then when shee is in the full, though she be in the same place of her supposed excentrick and epicycle, and therefore Tycho hath calculated a Table for the Diameter of the divers new Moones. But now there is no reason so probable to salve this appearance, as to place an orbe of thicker aire, neere the body of that Planet, which may be enlightened by the reflected beames, and through which the direct raies may easily penetrate.
But some may object that this will not consist with that which was before delivered, where I said, that the thinnest parts had least light.
If this were true, how comes it to passe then, that this aire should be as bright as any of the other parts, when as tis the thinnest of all?
I answer, if the light be received by reflection, then the thickest body hath most because it is best able to beare backe the raies, but if the light be received by illumination Hist. l. 1. c. 7. § 11. (especially if there be an opacous body behinde, which may double the beames by reflexion) as it is here, then I deny not but a thinne body may retaine much light, and perhaps, some of those appearances which wee take for fiery comets, are nothing else but a bright cloud enlightened, so that probable it is, there may be such aire without the Moone, and hence it comes to passe, that the greater spots are onely visible towards her middle parts, and none neere the circumference, not but that there are some as well in those parts as else where, but they are not there perceiveable, by reason of those brighter vapours which hide them.
Proposition 11.
That as their world is our Moone, so our world is their Moone.
Ihave already handled the first thing that I promised according to the Method which Aristotle uses in his Booke de Mundo, and shew’d you the necessary parts that belong to this world in the Moone. In the next place ’tis requisite that I proceed to those things which are extrinsecall unto it, as the Seasons, the Meteors, and the Inhabitants.
1. Of the Seasons;
And if there be such a world in the Moone, ’tis requisite then that their seasons should be some way correspondent unto ours, that they should have Winter and Summer, night and day, as wee have.
Now that in this Planet there is some similitude of Winter and Summer is affirmed by Aristotle De gen. animal. l. 4. 12. himselfe, since there is one hemispheare that hath alwaies heate and light, and the other that hath darknesse and cold. True indeed, their daies and yeeres are alwaies of one and the same length, but tis so with us also under the Poles, and therefore that great difference is not sufficient to make it altogether unlike ours, nor can we expect that every thing there should be in the same manner as it is here below, as if nature had no way but one to bring about her purposes. Wee may easily see what great differences there are amongst us, betwixt things of the same kinde. Some men (say they) Plat. de fac.
De naturâ populorum. c. 3. there are, who can live onely upon smells, without eating any thing, and the same Plant, saith Besoldus, hath sometimes contrary effects. Mandragora which growes in Syria inflames the lust, wheras Mandragora which grows in other places doth coole the blood & quench lust.