If you were in a boat, you would say with as much propriety, that the land and the trees moved, by which you failed; and yet they do not move.
CHARLES.
That is true, I have often observed it; but how comes it, that we do not feel the motion of the earth?
DR. BARTLETT.
Because you are accustomed to it from your birth, and the motion of so vast a body cannot be felt by so small a creature as man is, in proportion. The sun is much larger than the earth; thus it is most reasonable to conceive, arguing from what we know of the wisdom of the great Mover, that the earth goes round the sun, than that the sun moves round the earth.
WILLIAM.
And is the sun, Sir, so very large?
DR. BARTLETT.
It is well known to astronomers, that the sun is above a million of times bigger than the earth: judge then how large it must be.
WILLIAM.