Octahedrum of Solids shall (as shall appeare in their places) fill a place; And yet is not this Geometrie of Aristotle accurate enough. But right angles doe determine this sentence, and so doth Euclide out of the angles demonstrate, That there are onely five ordinate solids; And so doth Potamon the Geometer, as Simplicus testifieth, demonstrate the question of figures filling a place. Lastly, if figures, by laying of their corners together, doe make in a Plaine 4. right angles, or in a Solid 8. they doe fill a place.
Of this probleme the ancient geometers have written, as we heard even now: And of the latter writers, Regiomontanus is said to have written accurately; And of this argument Maucolycus hath promised a treatise, neither of which as yet it hath beene our good hap to see.
Neither of these are figures of this nature, as in their due places shall be proved and demonstrated.
28. A round figure is that, all whose raies are equall.
Such in plaines shall the Circle be, in Solids the Globe or Spheare. Now this figure, the Round, I meane, of all Isoperimeters is the greatest, as appeared before at the [15. e]. For which cause Plato, in his Timæus or his Dialogue of the World said; That this figure is of all other the greatest. And therefore God, saith he, did make the world of a
sphearicall forme, that within his compasse it might the better containe all things: And Aristotle, in his Mechanicall problems, saith; That this figure is the beginning, principle, and cause of all miracles. But those miracles shall in their time God willing, be manifested and showne.
Rotundum, a Roundle, let it be here used for Rotunda figura, a round figure. And in deede Thomas Finkius or Finche, as we would call him, a learned Dane, sequestring this argument from the rest of the body of Geometry, hath intituled that his worke De Geometria rotundi, Of the Geometry of the Round or roundle.
29. The diameters of a roundle are cut in two by equall raies.
The reason is, because the halfes of the diameters, are the raies. Or because the diameter is nothing else but a doubled ray: Therefore if thou shalt cut off from the diameter so much, as is the radius or ray, it followeth that so much shall still remaine, as thou hast cutte of, to witt one ray, which is the other halfe of the diameter. Sn.