[20] Ib. vol. i. p. 179.
Among the evidences of the difficulties which still lay in the way of the reception of the Copernican system, we may notice Bacon, who, as is well known, never gave a full assent to it. It is to be observed, however, that he does not reject the opinion of the earth’s motion in so peremptory and dogmatical a manner as he is sometimes accused of doing: thus in the Thema Cœli he says, “The earth, then, being supposed to be at rest (for that now appears to us the more true opinion).” And in his tract On the Cause of the Tides, he says, “If the tide of the sea be the extreme and diminished limit of the diurnal motion of the heavens, it will follow that the earth is immovable; or at least that it moves with a much slower motion than the water.” In the Descriptio Globi Intellectualis he gives his reasons for not accepting the heliocentric theory. “In the system of Copernicus there are many and grave difficulties: for the threefold motion with which he encumbers the earth is a serious inconvenience; and the separation of the sun from the planets, with which he has so many affections in common, is likewise a harsh step; and the introduction of so many immovable bodies into nature, as when he makes the sun and the stars immovable, the bodies which are peculiarly lucid and radiant; and his making the moon adhere to the earth in a sort of epicycle; and some [274] other things which he assumes, are proceedings which mark a man who thinks nothing of introducing fictions of any kind into nature, provided his calculations turn out well.” We have already explained that, in attributing three motions to the earth, Copernicus had presented his system encumbered with a complexity not really belonging to it. But it will be seen shortly, that Bacon’s fundamental objection to this system was his wish for a system which could be supported by sound physical considerations; and it must be allowed, that at the period of which we are speaking, this had not yet been done in favor of the Copernican hypothesis. We may add, however, that it is not quite clear that Bacon was in full possession of the details of the astronomical systems which that of Copernicus was intended to supersede; and that thus he, perhaps, did not see how much less harsh were these fictions, as he called them, than those which were the inevitable alternatives. Perhaps he might even be liable to a little of that indistinctness, with respect to strictly geometrical conceptions, which we have remarked in Aristotle. We can hardly otherwise account for his not seeing any use in resolving the apparently irregular motion of a planet into separate regular motions. Yet he speaks slightingly of this important step.[21] “The motion of planets, which is constantly talked of as the motion of regression, or renitency, from west to east, and which is ascribed to the planets as a proper motion, is not true; but only arises from appearance, from the greater advance of the starry heavens towards the west, by which the planets are left behind to the east.” Undoubtedly those who spoke of such a motion of regression were aware of this; but they saw how the motion was simplified by this way of conceiving it, which Bacon seems not to have seen. Though, therefore, we may admire Bacon for the steadfastness with which he looked forward to physical astronomy as the great and proper object of philosophical interest, we cannot give him credit for seeing the full value and meaning of what had been done, up to his time, in Formal Astronomy.
[21] Thema Cœli, p. 246.
Bacon’s contemporary, Gilbert, whom he frequently praises as a philosopher, was much more disposed to adopt the Copernican opinions, though even he does not appear to have made up his mind to assent to the whole of the system. In his work. De Magnete (printed 1600), he gives the principal arguments in favor of the Copernican system, and decides that the earth revolves on its axis.[22] He connects [275] this opinion with his magnetic doctrines; and especially endeavors by that means to account for the precession of the equinoxes. But he does not seem to have been equally confident of its annual motion. In a posthumous work, published in 1661 (De Mundo Nostra Sublunari Philosophia Nova) he appears to hesitate between the systems of Tycho and Copernicus.[23] Indeed, it is probable that at this period many persons were in a state of doubt on such subjects. Milton, at a period somewhat later, appears to have been still undecided. In the opening of the eighth book of the Paradise Lost, he makes Adam state the difficulties of the Ptolemaic hypothesis, to which the archangel Raphael opposes the usual answers; but afterwards suggests to his pupil the newer system:
. . . . What if seventh to these
The planet earth, so steadfast though she seem,
Insensibly three different motions move?
Par. Lost, b. viii.
[22] Lib. vi. cap. 3, 4.
[23] Lib. ii. cap. 20.
Milton’s leaning, however, seems to have been for the new system; we can hardly believe that he would otherwise have conceived so distinctly, and described with such obvious pleasure, the motion of the earth:
Or she from west her silent course advance
With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps
On her soft axle, while she paces even,
And bears thee soft with the smooth air along.