LAMPRIAS, APOLLONIDES, LUCIUS, PHARNACES, SYLLA, ARISTOTELES, THEON,
MENELAUS
[_The beginning of this discourse is lost._]
1. These things then, said Sylla, agree with my story, and are taken
thence. But I should first willingly ask, what need there is of making
such a preamble against these opinions, which are at hand and in every
man’s mouth, concerning the face that is seen within the orb of the
moon. Why should we not, said I, being, by the difficulty there is
in these discourses, forced upon those? For, as they who have long
lain lingering under chronical diseases, after they have been worn
out and tired with experimenting all ordinary remedies and the usual
rules of living and diet, have at last recourse to lustrations and
purifications, to charms and amulets fastened about the neck, and to
the interpretation of dreams; so in such obscure and abstruse questions
and speculations, when the common, apparent, and ordinary reasons are
not satisfactory, there is a necessity of trying such as are more
extravagant, and of not contemning but enchanting ourselves (as one may
say) with the discourses of the ancients, and endeavoring always to
find out the truth.
2. For you see at the very first blush, how impertinent his opinion
is who said, that the form appearing in the moon is an accident of our
sight, by its weakness giving way to her brightness, which we call the
dazzling of our eyes; for he perceives not that this should rather
befall our looking against the sun, whose lustre is more resplendent,
and whose rays are more quick and piercing; as Empedocles also in a
certain passage of his has not unpleasantly noted the difference of
these two planets, saying,
The sharp-rayed sun, and gently shining moon.
For thus does he call her alluring, favorable, and harmless light. No
less absurd appears the reason he afterwards gives why dull and weak
eyes discern no difference of form in the moon, her orb appearing to
them plain and smooth, whereas those whose sight is more acute and
penetrating better descry the lineaments and more perfectly observe the
impressions of a face, and more evidently distinguish its different
parts. For it should, in my opinion, be quite contrary, if this were
a fancy caused by the weakness of the vanquished sight; so that where
the patient’s eye is weaker, the appearance would be more express and
evident. Moreover, the inequality every way confutes this reason; for
this face is not seen in a continuance and confused shadow, but the
poet Agesianax not unelegantly describes it, saying,
With shining fire it circled does appear,
And in the midst is seen the visage clear
Of a young maid, whose eyes more gray than blue,
Her brow and cheeks a blushing red do show.
For indeed dark and shady things, encompassed with others that are
bright and shining, sink underneath and reciprocally rise again,
being repelled by them; and in a word, they are so interlaced one
within another, that they represent the figure of a face painted to
the life; and there seems to have been great probability in that
which was spoken against your Clearchus, my dear Aristotle. For he
appears not inconveniently to be called yours, for he was intimately
acquainted with the ancient Aristotle, although he perverted many of
the Peripatetic doctrines.
3. Then Apollonides taking up the discourse, and asking what that
opinion of Clearchus was; It would more, said I, beseem any man than
you to be ignorant of this discourse, as being grounded on the very
fundamental principles of geometry. For he affirms, that what we call
a face, is the image and figure of the great ocean, represented in
the moon as in a mirror. For the circumference of a circle, when it
is reflected back,[95] is wont in many places to touch objects which
are not seen in a direct line. And the full moon is for evenness and
lustre the most beautiful and purest of all mirrors. As then you hold,
that the heavenly bow appears, when the ray of light is reflected back
towards the sun, in a cloud which has got a little liquid smoothness
and consistence; so, said he, there is seen in the moon the surface of
the sea, not in the place where it is situated, but from whence the
reflection gives a sight of it by its reverberated and reflexed light,
as Agesianax again says in another passage,
This flaming mirror offers to your eyes
The vast sea’s figure, as beneath it lies
Foaming with raging billows.
4. Apollonides therefore, being delighted with this, said: A singular
opinion indeed is this of his, and (to speak in a word) strangely and
newly invented by a man sufficiently presumptuous, but not void of
learning and wit. But how, I pray, was it refuted?
First, said I, the superficies of the sea is all of a nature, the
current of it being uniform and continuous; but the appearance of those
black and dark spots which are seen in the face of the moon is not
continued, but has certain isthmuses or partitions clear and bright,
which divide and separate what is dark and shady. Whence every place
being distinguished and having its own limits apart, the conjunctions
of the clear with the obscure, taking a resemblance of high and low,
express and represent the similitude of a figure seeming to have eyes
and lips; so that we must of necessity suppose, either that there are
main oceans and main seas, distinguished by isthmuses and continents
of firm land, which is evidently absurd and false; or that if there
is but one, it is not credible its image should appear so distracted
and dissipated into pieces. And as for this, there is less danger in
asking than in affirming in your presence, whether, since the habitable
earth has both length and breadth, it is possible that the sight of all
men, when it is reflected by the moon, should equally touch the ocean,
even of those that sail and dwell in it, as do the Britons; especially
since the earth, as you have maintained, has but the proportion of a
point, if compared to the sphere of the moon. This therefore, said I,
it is your business to observe, but the reflection of the sight against
the moon belongs neither to you nor Hipparchus. And yet, my friend
Lamprias, there are many naturalists, who approve not this doctrine
of his touching the driving back of the sight, but affirm it to be
more probable that it has a certain obedient and agreeing temperature
and compactness of structure, than such beatings and repercussions as
Epicurus feigned for his atoms.[96] Nor am I of opinion that Clearchus
would have us suppose the moon to be a massy and weighty body, but a
celestial and light-giving star, as you say it is, which must have the
property of breaking and turning aside the sight; so that all this
reflection would come to nothing. But if we are desired to receive
and admit it, we shall ask why this face or image of the sea is to be
seen only in the body of the moon; and not in any of the other stars?
For the laws of probability require that the sight should suffer this
equally in all, or else in none.
But pray, sir, said I, casting mine eyes upon Lucius, call a little to
mind what was said at first by those of our party.
5. Nay rather, answered he,—lest we should seem too injurious to
Pharnaces, in thus passing by the opinion of the Stoics, without
opposing any thing against it,—let us make some reply to this man, who
supposes the moon to be wholly a mixture of air and mild fire, and then
says that, as in a calm there sometimes arises on a sudden a breeze of
wind which curls and ruffles the superficies of the sea, so, the air
being darkened and rendered black, there is an appearance and form of a
face.
You do courteously, Lucius, said I, thus to veil and cover with
specious expressions so absurd and false an opinion. But so did not
our friend; but he said, as the truth is, that the Stoics disfigured
and mortified the moon’s face, filling it with stains and black spots,
one while invocating her by the name of Diana and Minerva, and another
while making her a lump and mixture of dark air and charcoal-fire, not
kindling of itself or having any light of its own, but a body hard to
be judged and known, always smoking and ever burning, like to those
thunders which by the poets are styled lightless and sooty. Now that a
fire of coals, such as they would have that of the moon to be, cannot
have any continuance nor yet so much as the least subsistence, unless
it meets with some solid matter fit to maintain it, keep it in, and
feed it, has, I think, far better than it is by these philosophers,
been understood by those poets who in merriment affirm that Vulcan was
therefore said to be lame because fire can no more go forward without
wood or fuel than a cripple without a crutch. If then the moon is
fire, whence has it so much air? For that region above, which is with
a continual motion carried round, consists not of air, but some more
excellent substance, whose nature it is to subtilize and set on fire
all other things. And if it has been since engendered there, how comes
it that it does not perish, being changed and transmuted by the fire
into an ethereal and heavenly substance? And how can it maintain and
preserve itself, cohabiting so long with the fire, as a nail always
fixed and fastened in one and the same place? For being rare and
diffused, as by Nature it is, it is not fitted for permanency and
continuance, but for change and dissipation. Neither is it possible
that it should condense and grow compact, being mixed with fire, and
utterly void of water and earth, the only two elements by which the
nature of the air suffers itself to be brought to a consistency and
thickness. And since the swiftness and violence of motion is wont to
inflame the air which is in stones, and even in lead itself, as cold as
it is; much more will it that which, being in fire, is with so great
an impetuosity whirled about. For they are displeased with Empedocles
for making the moon a mass of air congealed after the manner of hail,
included within a sphere of fire. And yet they themselves say, that
the moon, being a globe of fire, contains in it much air dispersed
here and there,—and this, though it has neither ruptures, concavities,
nor depths (which they who affirm it to be earthly admit), but the
air lies superficially on its convexity. Now this is both against the
nature of permanency, and impossible to be accorded with what we see
in full moons; for it should not appear separately black and dark, but
either be wholly obscured and concealed or else co-illuminated, when
the moon is overspread by the sun. For with us the air which is in
the pits and hollows of the earth, whither the rays of the sun cannot
penetrate, remains dark and lightless; but that which is spread over
its exterior parts has clearness and a lightsome color. For it is by
reason of its rarity easily transformed into every quality and faculty,
but principally that of light and brightness, by which, being never
so little touched, it incontinently changes and is illuminated. This
reason therefore, as it seems greatly to help and maintain the opinion
of those who thrust the air into certain deep valleys and caves in the
moon, so confutes you, who mix and compose her sphere, I know not how,
of air and fire. For it is not possible that there should remain any
shadow or darkness in the superficies of the moon, when the sun with
his brightness clears and enlightens whatsoever we can discern of her
and ken with our sight.
6. Whilst I was yet speaking, Pharnaces interrupting my discourse
said: See here again the usual stratagem of the Academy brought into
play against us, which is to busy themselves at every turn in speaking
against others, but never to afford an opportunity for reproving what
they say themselves; so that those with whom they confer and dispute
must always be respondents and defendants, and never plaintiffs or
opponents. You shall not therefore bring me this day to give you an
account of those things you charge upon the Stoics, till you have first
rendered me a reason for your turning the world upside down.
Then Lucius smiling said: This, good sir, I am well contented to do,
provided only that you will not accuse us of impiety, as Cleanthes
thought that the Greeks ought to have called Aristarchus the Samian
into question and condemned him of blasphemy against the Gods,
as shaking the very foundations of the world, because this man,
endeavoring to save the appearances, supposed that the heavens remained
immovable, and that the earth moved through an oblique circle, at the
same time turning about its own axis. As for us therefore, we say
nothing that we take from them. But how do they, my good friend, who
suppose the moon to be earth, turn the world upside down more than you,
who say that the earth remains here hanging in the air, being much
greater than the moon, as the mathematicians measure their magnitude by
the accidents of eclipses, and by the passages of the moon through the
shadow of the earth, gathering thence how great a space it takes up?
For the shadow of the earth is less than itself, by reason it is cast
by a greater light. And that the end of this shadow upwards is slender
and pointed, they say that Homer himself was not ignorant, but plainly
expressed it when he called the night θοή (that is, _acute_) from
the sharp-pointedness of the earth’s shadow. And yet the moon in her
eclipses, being caught within this point of the shadow; can scarce get
out of it by going forward thrice her own bigness in length. Consider
then, how many times the earth must needs be greater than the moon,
if it casts a shadow, the narrowest point of which is thrice as broad
as the moon. But you are perhaps afraid lest the moon should fall, if
it were acknowledged to be earth; but as for the earth, Aeschylus has
secured you, when he says that Atlas
Stands shouldering the pillar of the heaven and earth,
A burden onerous.[97]
If then there runs under the moon only a light air, not firm enough
to bear a solid burthen, whereas under the earth there are, as Pindar
says, columns and pillars of adamant for its support, therefore
Pharnaces himself is out of all dread of the earth’s falling, but he
pities the Ethiopians and those of Taprobane, who lie directly under
the course of the moon, fearing lest so ponderous a mass should tumble
upon their heads. And yet the moon has, for an help to preserve her
from falling, her motion and the impetuosity of her revolution; as
stones, pebbles, and other weights, put into slings, are kept from
dropping out whilst they are swung round, by the swiftness of their
motion. For every body is carried according to its natural motion,
unless it be diverted by some other intervening cause. Wherefore
the moon does not move according to the motion of her weight, her
inclination being stopped and hindered by the violence of a circular
revolution. And perhaps there would be more reason to wonder, if
the moon continued always immovable in the same place, as does the
earth. But now the moon has a great cause to keep herself from tending
hither downwards; but for the earth, which has no other motion, it is
probable that it has also no other cause of its settlement but its
own weight. For the earth is heavier than the moon, not only because
it is greater, but also because the moon is rendered lighter by the
heat and inflammation that is in it. In brief, it appears by what you
say, if it is true that the moon is fire, that it stands in need of
earth or some other matter, which it may rest on and cleave to, for
the maintaining and nourishing of its power. For it is not possible to
imagine how a fire can be preserved without some combustible matter.
And you yourselves say that the earth continues firm without any basis
or pedestal to support it.
Yes surely, said Pharnaces, being in its proper and natural place, the
very middle and centre of the universe. For this it is to which all
heavy and ponderous things do from every side naturally tend, incline,
and aspire, and about which they cling and are counterpoised. But every
superior region, though it may perhaps receive some earthly and weighty
thing sent by violence up into it, immediately repels and casts it down
again by force, or (to speak better) lets it follow its own proper
inclination, by which it naturally tends downwards.
7. For the refutation of which, being willing to give Lucius time for
the calling to mind his arguments, I addressed myself to Theon, and
asked him which of the tragic poets it was who said that physicians
With bitter med’cines bitter choler purge.
And Theon having answered me that it was Sophocles; This, said I to
him, we must of necessity permit them to do; but we are not to give
ear to those philosophers who would overthrow paradoxes by assertions
no less strange and paradoxical, and for the oppugning strange and
extravagant opinions, devise others yet more wonderful and absurd;
as these men do, who broach and introduce this doctrine of a motion
tending towards the middle, in which what sort of absurdity is
there not to be found? Does it not thence follow, that the earth is
spherical, though we nevertheless see it to have so many lofty hills,
so many deep valleys, and so great a number of inequalities? Does it
not follow that there are antipodes dwelling opposite to another,
sticking on every side to the earth, with their heads downwards and
their heels upwards, as if they were woodworms or lizards? That we
ourselves go not on the earth straight upright, but obliquely and
bending aside like drunken men? That if bars and weights of a thousand
talents apiece should be let fall into the hollow of the earth, they
would, when they were come to the centre, stop and rest there, though
nothing came against them or sustained them; and that, if peradventure
they should by force pass the middle, they would of themselves return
and rebound back thither again? That if one should saw off the two
trunks or ends of a beam on either side of the earth, they would not
be always carried downwards, but falling both from without into the
earth, they would equally meet, and hide themselves together in the
middle? That if a violent stream of water should run downwards into
the ground, it would, when it came to the centre of the earth, which
they hold to be an incorporeal point, there gather together, and turn
round like a whirlpool, with a perpetual and endless suspension?
Some of which positions are so absurd, that none can so much as force
his imagination, though falsely, to conceive them possible. For this
is indeed to make that which is above to be below; and to turn all
things upside down, by making all that is as far as the middle to be
_downwards_, and all that is beyond the middle to be _upwards_; so that
if a man should, by the sufferance and consent of the earth, stand with
his navel just against her centre, he would by this means have his feet
and head both upwards; and if one, having digged through that place
which is beyond the middle, should come to pull him out from thence,
that part which is below would at one and the same time be drawn
upwards, and that which is above, downwards. And if another should be
imagined to stand the contrary way, their feet, though the one’s were
opposite to the other’s, would both be and be said to be upwards.
8. Bearing then upon their shoulders, and drawing after them, I do
not say a little bag or box, but a whole pack of juggler’s boxes,
full of so many absurdities, with which they play the hocus-pocus in
philosophy, they nevertheless accuse others of error for placing the
moon, which they hold to be earth, on high, and not in the middle or
centre of the world. And yet, if every heavy body inclines towards
the same place, and does from all sides and with every one of its
parts tend to its own centre, the earth certainly will appropriate and
challenge to itself these ponderous masses—which are its parts—not
because it is the centre of the universe, but rather because it is the
whole; and this gathering together of heavy bodies round about it will
not be a sign showing it to be the middle of the world, but an argument
to prove and testify that these bodies which had been plucked from it
and again return to it have a communication and conformity of nature
with the earth. For as the sun draws into himself the parts of which
he is composed, so the earth receives a stone as a part belonging to
it, in such manner that every one of such things is in time united and
incorporated with it. And if peradventure there is some other body
which was not from the beginning allotted to the earth nor has been
separated from it, but had its own proper and peculiar consistence
and nature apart, as these men may say of the moon, what hinders but
it may continue separated by itself, being kept close, compacted, and
bound together by its own parts? For they do not demonstrate that the
earth is the middle of the universe; and this conglomeration of heavy
bodies which are here, and their coalition with the earth, show us
the manner how it is probable that the parts which are assembled in
the body of the moon continue also there. But as for him who drives
and ranges together in one place all earthly and ponderous things,
making them parts of one and the same body, I wonder that he does not
attribute also the same necessity and constraint to light substances,
but leaves so many conglomerations of fire separated one from another;
nor can I see why he should not amass together all the stars, and think
that there ought to be but one body of all those substances which fly
upwards.
9. But you mathematicians, friend Apollonides, say that the sun is
distant from our upper sphere infinite thousands of miles, and after
him the day-star or Venus, Mercury, and other planets, which being
situated under the fixed stars, and separated from one another by great
intervals, make their revolutions; and in the mean time you think that
the world affords not to heavy and terrestrial bodies any great and
large place or distance one from another. You plainly see, it would
be ridiculous, if we should deny the moon to be earth because it is
not seated in the lowest region of the world, and yet affirm it to
be a star, though so many thousands of miles remote from the upper
firmament, as if it were plunged into some deep gulf. For she is so
low before all other stars, that the measure of the distances cannot be
expressed, and you mathematicians want numbers to compute and reckon
it; but she in a manner touches the earth, making her revolution so
near the tops of the mountains, that she seems, as Empedocles has it,
to leave even the very tracks of her chariot-wheels behind her. For
oftentimes she surpasses not the shadow of the earth, which is very
short through the excessive greatness of the sun that shines upon it,
but seems to turn so near the superficies, and (as one may say) between
the arms and in the bosom of the earth, that it withholds from her the
light of the sun, because she mounts that shady, earthly, and nocturnal
region which is the lot and inheritance of the earth. And therefore I
am of opinion, we may boldly say that the moon is within the limits and
confines of the earth, seeing she is even darkened by the summits of
its mountains.
10. But leaving the stars, as well erring as fixed, see what
Aristarchus proves and demonstrates in his treatise of magnitudes and
distances; that the distance of the sun is above eighteen times and
under twenty times greater than that of the moon from us. And yet they
who place the moon lowest say that her distance from us contains six
and fifty of the earth’s semidiameters, that is, that she is six and
fifty times as far from us as we are from the centre of the earth;
which is forty thousand stadia, according to those that make their
computation moderately. Therefore the sun is above forty millions and
three hundred thousand stadia distant from the moon; so far is she from
the sun by reason of her gravity, and so near does she approach to the
earth. So that if substances are to be distinguished by places, the
portion and region of the earth challenges to itself the moon, which,
by reason of neighborhood and proximity, has a right to be reputed and
reckoned amongst the terrestrial natures and bodies. Nor shall we, in
my opinion, do amiss if, having given so vast an interval and distance
to these bodies which are said to be above, we leave also to those
which are below some space and room to turn them in, such as is that
between the earth and the moon. For neither is he who calls only the
utmost superficies of the heaven _above_ and all the rest _beneath_
moderate or tolerable; nor is he to be endured who confines _beneath_
only to the earth, or rather to its centre; seeing the vast greatness
of the world may afford means for the assigning farther to this lower
part some such space as is necessary for motion. Now against him who
holds that whatever is above the earth is immediately high and sublime,
there is presently another opposition to encounter and contradict it,
that whatever is beneath the sphere of the fixed stars ought to be
called low and inferior.
11. In a word, how is the earth said to be the middle, and of what
is it the middle? For the universe is infinite; and infiniteness
having neither beginning nor end, it is convenient also that it should
not have any middle; for the middle is a certain end or limit, but
infiniteness is a privation of all sorts of limits. Now he that affirms
the earth to be the middle, not of the universe but of the world, is
certainly a pleasant man, if he does not think that the world itself
is subject to the same doubts and difficulties. For the universe has
not left a middle even to the very world, but this being without any
certain seat or foundation, it is carried in an infinite voidness to no
proper end; or if perhaps it has stopped, it has met with some other
cause or stay, not according to the nature of the place. As much may be
conjectured of the moon, that by the means of another soul and another
Nature, or (to say better) of another difference, the earth continues
firm here below, and the moon moves. Besides this, see whether they are
not ignorant of a great inconvenience and error. For if it is true
that all which is without the centre of the earth, however it be, is
above, there will then be no part of the world below; but the earth and
all that is upon it will be above; and in brief, every body that shall
be placed about the centre will be above, and there will be nothing
below or underneath, but one only point which has no body, which will
of necessity make head against and oppose all the rest of the world’s
nature, if _above_ and _beneath_ are naturally opposite to one another.
Nor is this the only absurdity that will follow; but all heavy and
ponderous bodies will also lose the cause for which they move and
tend downwards hither, for there will be no body below to which they
should move; and as for that which is incorporeal, it is not probable,
neither will they themselves allow, that it should be so forcible as
to draw and retain all things about itself. But if it is unreasonable
and contrary to Nature that the whole world should be above, and that
there should be nothing below but an incorporeal and indivisible term
or limit, then is this, as we say, yet more reasonable, that the
region above and that below being divided the one from the other, have
nevertheless each of them a large and spacious room.
12. Nevertheless, supposing, if you please, that it is against Nature
for earthly bodies to have any motions in heaven, let us consider
leisurely and mildly—and not violently, as is done in tragedies—that
this is no proof of the moon’s not being earth, but only that earth
is in a place where by nature it should not be; for the fire of Mount
Aetna is indeed against nature under ground, nevertheless it ceases not
to be fire. And the wind contained within bottles is indeed of its own
nature light and inclined to ascend, but is yet by force constrained to
be there where naturally it should not be. And is not our very soul, I
beseech you in the name of Jupiter, which, as yourselves say, is light,
of a fiery substance, and imperceptible to sense, included within
the body, which is heavy, cold, and palpable? Yet do we therefore say
that the soul does not belong to the body; or that it is not a divine
substance under a gross and heavy mass, or that it does not in a moment
pass through heaven, earth, and sea, pierce into the flesh, nerves,
and marrow, and into the humors which are the cause of a thousand
passions? And even your Jupiter, such as you imagine him and depaint
him to be, is he not of his own nature a great and perpetual fire?
Yet now he submits, is pliable, and transformed into all things by
several mutations. Take heed therefore, good sir, lest, by transferring
and reducing every thing to the place assigned it by Nature, you so
philosophize as to bring in a dissolution of the whole world, and put
all things again into that state of enmity mentioned by Empedocles, or
(to speak more properly) lest you raise up again those ancient Titans
and Giants to put on arms against Nature, and endeavor to introduce
again that fabulous disorder and confusion, where all that is heavy
goes one way apart, and all that is light another;
Where neither sun’s bright face is seen,
Nor earth beheld, spread o’er with green,
Nor the salt sea,
as Empedocles has it. Then the earth felt no heat, nor the sea any
wind; no heavy thing moved upwards, nor any light thing downwards;
but the principles of all things were solitary, without any mutual
love or dilection one to another, not admitting any society or
mixture together; but shunning and avoiding all communication, moving
separately by particular motions, as being disdainful, proud, and
altogether carrying themselves in such manner as every thing does from
which (as Plato says) God is absent; that is, as those bodies do in
which there is neither soul nor understanding; till such time as, by
Divine Providence, desire coming into Nature engendered mutual amity,
Venus, and Love,—as Empedocles, Parmenides, and Hesiod have it,—to the
end that changing their natural places, and reciprocally communicating
their faculties, some being by necessity bound to motion, others to
quiet and rest, and all tending to the better, every thing remitting
a little of its power and yielding a little from its place, ... they
might make at length a harmony, accord, and society together.
13. For if there had not been any other part of the world against
Nature, but every thing had been in the same place and quality it
naturally ought to be, without standing in need of any change or
transposition or having had any occasion for it from the beginning, I
know not what the work of Divine Providence is or in what it consists,
or of what Jupiter has been the father, creator, or worker. For there
would not in a camp be any need of the art of ranging and ordering of
battles, if every soldier of himself knew and understood his rank,
place, and station, and the opportunity he ought to take and keep; nor
would there be any want of gardeners or builders, if water were of
itself framed to flow where it is necessary, and irrigate such plants
as stand in need of watering, or if bricks, timber, and stones would of
their own inclinations and natural motion range and settle themselves
in due and fitting places and orders. Now if this discourse manifestly
takes away Providence, and if the ordering and distinction of things
that are in the world belongs to God, why should we wonder at Nature’s
having been so disposed and ordained by him, that the fire should be
here, and the stars there, and again the earth should be situated here
below, and the moon above, lodged in a prison found out by reason,
more sure and straight than that which was first ordained by Nature?
For if it were of absolute necessity that all things should follow
their natural instinct and move according to the motion given them by
Nature, neither the Sun, Venus, nor any other planet would any more
run a circular course; for light and fiery substances have by Nature
their motion directly upwards. And if perhaps Nature itself receives
this permutation and change by reason of the place, so that fire should
here in a direct line tend upwards, but being once arrived at heaven,
should turn round with the revolution of the heavens; what wonder would
it be, if heavy and terrestrial bodies, being in like manner out of
their natural place, were vanquished by the ambient air, and forced
to take another sort of motion? For it cannot with any reason be said
that heaven has by Nature the power to take away from light things the
property of mounting directly upwards, and cannot likewise have the
force to overcome heavy things and such as tend downwards; but that
sometimes making use of this power, and sometimes of the proper nature
of the things, it still orders every thing for the best.
14. But if, laying aside those servile habits and opinions to which
we have enslaved ourselves, we must frankly and fearlessly deliver
our judgment, it seems clear to me, that there is not any part of the
universe which has a peculiar and separate rank, situation, or motion,
that can simply be said to be natural to it. But when every thing
exhibits and yields up itself to be moved, as is most profitable and
fit for that for whose sake it was made and to which it is by Nature
appointed,—suffering, doing, or being disposed, as is most expedient
and meet for the safety, beauty, and power of the same,—then it appears
to have its place, motion, and disposition according to Nature. As
a proof of this, we may observe that man, who, if any thing in the
world be so, is made and disposed according to Nature, has upwards,
especially about his head, heavy and terrestrial things, and about
the middle of his body such as are hot and participate of fire; of
his teeth also some grow upwards and some downwards, and yet neither
the one nor the other are contrary to Nature; neither is the fire
which shines in his eyes according to Nature, and that which is in his
heart and stomach against it; but it is in each place properly and
beneficially seated. Moreover, consider the nature of all shell-fishes;
and, that I may use the words of Empedocles,
Look on the crabs, the oysters of the sea,
And shell-fish all, which heavy coats enfold,
The tortoise too with arched back, whom we
Covered with crust, as hard as stone, behold.
View them but well, and plain it will appear,
They hardened earth above their bodies bear.
And yet this crust, stone-like, hard, and heavy, as it is thus placed
over their bodies, does not press and crush their natural habit, nor on
the contrary does their heat fly upwards by reason of its lightness,
and vanish away, but they are mingled and composed one with another,
according to the nature of each one.
15. Wherefore it is also probable that the world, if it is an animal,
has in many parts of its body earth, and in as many fire and water and
air, not thrust and driven into it by force, but ordered and disposed
by reason. For neither was the eye by its lightness forced into that
part of the body where it is, nor the heart by its gravity pressed
down into the breast; but both the one and the other were thus placed
because it was better and more expedient. In like manner we ought not
to think of the parts of the world, either that the earth settled where
it is, being beaten down thither by its ponderosity; or that the sun
was carried upwards by its levity, like a bottle or bladder full of
wind (which, being plunged into the bottom of the water, immediately
rises up again), as Metrodorus of Chios was persuaded; or that the
other stars, as if they had been put into a balance, were swayed this
way or that way, according to their weight or lightness, and so mounted
higher or lower to the places they now possess. But reason having
prevailed in the constitution of the world, the stars have like to
glittering eyes, been fixed in the firmament, as it were in the face
of the universe, there to turn continually about; and the sun, having
the force and vigor of the heart, sends and distributes its heat and
light, like blood and spirits, throughout all; the earth and sea are in
the world, as the paunch and bladder in the body of a living creature;
and the moon placed between the sun and the earth, as the liver, or
some other soft entrail between the heart and the belly, transmits down
thither the heat of the superior bodies, and draws round about her the
vapors which arise from hence, subtilizing them by way of concoction
and purification. And whether its solid and terrestrial quality has
any other property serving for some profitable use, is indeed unknown
to us; but everywhere that which is better prevails over what is by
necessity. For what probability can we draw from that which they
affirm? They say, that the most subtile and luminous part of the air,
by reason of its rarity, became heaven; but what was thickened and
closely driven together was made into stars, of which the moon being
the heaviest is compacted of the grossest and muddiest matter. And yet
it is plainly to be seen, that the moon is not separated or divided
from the air, but moves and makes her revolution through that which
is about her, to wit, the region of the winds, and where the comets
are engendered and keep their course. These bodies then were not by a
natural inclination thus placed and situated as they are, but have by
some other reason been so ordered and disposed.
16. These things being said, as I was giving Lucius his turn to follow
and continue the discourse,—there being nothing left to be added but
the demonstrations of this doctrine,—Aristotle smiling said: I am a
witness, that you have directed all your contradictions and all your
refutations against those who, supposing the moon to be half fire,
affirm in general that all bodies do of their own accord tend either
upwards or downwards; but if there is any one who holds that the stars
have of their own nature a circular motion, and that they are of a
substance wholly different from the four elements, you have not thought
of saying any thing, so much as accidentally or by the way, against
him; and therefore I am wholly unconcerned in your discourse.
Indeed, good sir, said Lucius, if you should suppose the other stars,
and the whole heaven apart, to be of a pure and sincere nature, free
from all change and alteration of passion, and should bring in also
a circle, in which they make their motion by a perpetual revolution,
you would not perhaps find any one now to contradict you, though there
are in this infinite doubts and difficulties. But when the discourse
descends so far as to touch the moon, it cannot maintain in her that
perfection of being exempt from all passion and alteration, nor that
heavenly beauty of her body. But to let pass all other inequalities
and differences, the very face which appears in the body of the
moon necessarily proceeds from some passion of her own substance or
the mixture of another; for what is mixed suffers, because it loses
its first purity, being filled by force with that which is worse.
Besides, as for the slowness and dulness of her course, her feeble and
inefficacious heat, by which, as Ion says,
The black grape comes not to maturity,
to what shall we attribute them but to her weakness and passion, if an
eternal and celestial body can be subject to passion?
In brief, my friend Aristotle, if the moon is earth, she is a most fair
and admirable thing, and excellently well adorned; but if you regard
her as a star or light or a certain divine and heavenly body, I am
afraid she will prove deformed and foul, and disgrace that beautiful
appellation, if of all bodies, which are in heaven so numerous, she
alone stands in need of light borrowed of another, and, as Parmenides
has it,
Looks always backwards on the sun’s bright rays.
Our friend therefore indeed, having in a lecture of his demonstrated
this proposition of Anaxagoras, that the sun communicates to the moon
what brightness she has, was well esteemed for it. As for me, I will
not say what I have learned of you or with you, but having taken it
for granted, will pass on to the rest. It is then probable that the
moon is illuminated, not like a glass or crystal, by the brightness
of the sun’s rays shining through her, nor yet again, by a certain
collustration and conjunction of light and brightness, as when many
torches set together augment the light of one another. For so she
would be no less full in her conjunction or first quarter than in her
opposition, if she did not obstruct or repel the rays of the sun, but
let them pass through her by reason of her rarity, or if he did by a
contemperature shine upon her and kindle the light within her. For we
cannot allege her declinations and aversions in the conjunction or new
moon, as when it is half-moon or when she appears crescent or in the
wane; but being then perpendicularly (as Democritus says) under him
that illuminates her, she receives and admits the sun; so that then it
is probable she should appear, and he shine through her. But this she
is so far from doing, that she is not only then unseen, but also often
hides the sun, as Empedocles has it:
The sun’s bright beams from us she turns aside,
And of the earth itself as much doth hide,
As her orb’s breadth can cover;
as if the light of the sun fell not upon another star, but upon night
and darkness. And as for what Posidonius says, that the depth of the
moon’s body is the cause why the light of the sun cannot pierce through
her to us, this is evidently refuted; for the air, which is infinite
and of a far greater depth than the body of the moon, is nevertheless
all over illustrated and enlightened by the rays of the sun.
It remains then that, according to the opinion of Empedocles, the
light of the moon which appears to us comes from the repercussion
and reflection of the sun’s beams. And for this reason it comes not
to us hot and bright, as in all probability it would, if her shining
proceeded either from inflammation or the commixtion of two lights. But
as voices reverberated cause an echo more obscure and less express than
the speech that was pronounced, and as the blows of darts and arrows,
rebounding from some wall against which they are shot, are more mild
and gentle;
So Titan’s lustre, smiting the moon’s orb,
yields but a faint and feeble reflection and repercussion of brightness
upon us, its force being abated and weakened by the refraction.
17. Sylla then, taking up the discourse, said: There is indeed a
great deal of probability in all that you have spoken. But as to the
strongest objection that is brought against it, has it, think you, been
any way weakened by this discourse? Or has our friend quite passed it
over in silence?
What opposition do you mean, said Lucius? Is it the difficulty about
the moon, when one half of her appears enlightened?
The very same, answered Sylla. For there is some reason, seeing that
all reflection is made by equal angles, that when the half-moon is
in the midst of heaven, the light proceeding from her should not be
carried upon the earth, but glance and fall beyond and on one side of
it. For the sun, being placed in the horizon, touches the moon with
its beams; which, being equally reflected, will therefore necessarily
fall on the other bound of the horizon, and not send their light down
hither; or else there will be a great distortion and difference of the
angle, which is impossible.
And yet, by Jupiter, replied Lucius, this has not been forgotten or
overpassed, but already spoken to. And casting his eye, as he was
discoursing, upon the mathematician Menelaus; I am ashamed, said
he, in your presence, dear Menelaus, to attempt the subverting and
overthrowing of a mathematical position, which is supposed as a basis
and foundation to the doctrine of the catoptrics concerning the causes
and reasons of mirrors. And yet of necessity I must. For it neither
appears of itself nor is confessed as true, that all reflections are at
equal angles; but this position is first checked and contradicted in
concave mirrors, when they represent the images of things, appearing
at one point of sight, greater than the things themselves. And it is
also disproved by double mirrors, which being inclined or turned one
towards the other, so that an angle is made within, each of the glasses
or plain superficies yields a double resemblance; so that there are
four images from the same face, two answerable to the object without
on the left side, and two others obscure and not so evident on the
right side in the bottom of the mirror. Of which Plato renders the
efficient cause; for he says, that a mirror being raised on the one
and the other side, the sight varies the reflection, falling from one
side to the other. And therefore, since of the views or visions some
immediately have recourse to us, and others, sliding to opposite parts
of the mirror, do again return upon us from thence, it is not possible
that all reflections should be made at equal angles. Though those who
closely impugn our opinion contend that, by these reflections of light
from the moon upon the earth, the equality of angles is taken away,
thinking this to be much more probable than the other.
Nevertheless, if we must of necessity yield and grant thus much to our
dearly beloved geometry, first, this should in all likelihood befall
those mirrors which are perfectly smooth and exquisitely polished;
whereas the moon has many inequalities and roughnesses, so that the
rays proceeding from a vast body, and carried to mighty altitudes,
receive one from another and intercommunicate their lights, which,
being sent to and fro and reciprocally distributed, are refracted and
interlaced all manner of ways, and the counter-lights meet one another,
as if they came to us from several mirrors. And then, though we should
suppose these reflections on the superficies of the moon to be made
at equal angles, yet it is not impossible that the rays, coming down
unto us by so long an interval, may have their flexions, fractions, and
delapsions, that the light being compounded may shine the more. Some
also there are who prove by lineary demonstration, that many lights
send a ray down by a line drawn below the line of reflection; but to
make the description and delineation of it publicly, especially where
there were many auditors, would not be very easy.
18. But in brief, said he, I wonder how they come thus to allege
against us the half-moon, there being the same reason when she is
gibbous and crescent. For if the sun enlightened the moon, as a mass of
ethereal or fiery matter, he would never surely leave one hemisphere,
or half of her globe always appearing dark and shadowy to sense, as it
is seen to be; but how little soever he touched her superficies, it
would be agreeable to reason that it should be wholly replenished and
totally changed by that light of his, which by reason of its agility
and swiftness so easily spreads and passes through all. For, since wine
touching water only in one point, or one drop of blood falling into
any liquor, dyes and colors it all with a red or purple color; and
since they say, that the very air is altered and changed with light,
not by any defluxions or beams intermingled, but by a sudden conversion
and change made in one only point; how can they imagine that one star
touching another star, and one light another light, should not be
immediately mingled, nor make any thorough confusion or change, but
only exteriorly illuminate that whose superficies it touches? For that
circle which the sun makes by fetching a compass and turning towards
the moon,—sometimes falling upon the very line that distinguishes her
visible part from her invisible, and sometimes rising up directly, so
that it cuts her in two and is reciprocally cut by her, causing in her,
by several inclinations and habitudes of the luminous to the dark,
those various forms by which she appears gibbous and crescent,—that
more than any thing else demonstrates, that all this illumination
of the moon is not a mixture, but only a touching; nor a conflux or
gathering together of sundry lights, but only an illustration round
about.
But forasmuch as she is not only enlightened herself, but also sends
back hither the image of her illumination, this confirms us yet
further in what we say touching her substance. For reflections and
reverberations are not made upon any thing which is rare, and of thin
and subtile parts; nor is it easily to be imagined how light can
rebound from light, or one fire from another. But that which is to make
the reverberation or reflection must be solid and firm, that a blow
may be given against it and a rebounding made from it. As a proof of
this, we see that the air transmits the sun, and gives him a way to
pierce quite through it, not obstructing or driving back his rays; but
on the contrary from wood, stones, or clothes put in the sun, there are
made many reflections of light and many illuminations round about. So
we see that the earth is illuminated by him, not to the very bottom,
as the water, nor thoroughly and all over, as the air, through which
the beams of the sun have a clear passage; but just such a circle as
surrounds the moon surrounds also the earth; and as much of the earth
as this circle includes, so much does the sun enlighten, the rest being
left without light; for what is illuminated both in the one and in the
other is little more than an hemisphere. Permit me therefore now to
conclude after the manner of geometricians by proportions. If there are
three things which the light of the sun approaches, the air, the moon,
and the earth, and if we see that the moon is enlightened by him, not
as the air, but as the earth, it is of necessity that those two things
must have one and the same nature, which of one and the same cause
suffer the same effects.
19. Now when all the company began highly to commend Lucius’s harangue;
This is excellently well done of you, Lucius (said I to him), that you
have to so fine a discourse added as fine a proportion, for you must
not be defrauded of that which is your due.
Then Lucius, smiling, thus went on: I have yet a second proportion to
be added to the former, by which we will clearly demonstrate that the
moon altogether resembles the earth, not only because they suffer and
receive the same accidents from the same cause, but because they work
the same effect on the same object. For you will without difficulty,
I suppose, grant me that, of all the accidents which befall the sun,
there is none so like to his setting as his eclipse, especially if you
but call to mind that recent conjunction which, beginning at noonday,
showed us many stars in many places of the heavens, and wrought a
temperature in the air like that of the twilight. But if you will not
grant me this, our friend Theon here will bring us a Mimnermus, a
Cydias, an Archilochus, and besides these, a Stesichorus and a Pindar,
lamenting that in eclipses the world is robbed of its brightest light,
and saying that night comes on in the midst of the day, and that the
rays of the sun wander in the path of darkness; but above all he will
produce Homer, saying that the faces of men are in eclipses seized upon
by night and darkness, and the sun is quite lost out of heaven by the
conjunction of the moon. And ... it is natural that this should happen,
When one moon’s going, and another comes.
For the rest of the demonstration is, in my opinion, as certain and
exactly concluding, as are the acute arguments of the mathematics. As
night is the shadow of the earth, so the eclipse of the sun is the
shadow of the moon, when it stands in the way of our sight. For the
sun is at his setting kept from our sight by the interposition of the
earth, and at his eclipse by that of the moon. Now both of these are
obscurations; but that of his setting is from the earth, and that of
his being eclipsed from the moon, their shadows intercepting our sight.
Now the consequences of these things are easily understood. For if the
effect is alike, the efficient causes are also alike; because it is
of necessity that the same effects, happening in the same subjects,
proceed from the same efficients. Now if the darkness in eclipses is
not so profound, nor does so forcibly and entirely seize the air, as
does the night, we are not to wonder at it; for the substance of the
body which makes the night, and of that which causes the eclipse,
is indeed the same, though their greatness is not equal. For the
Egyptians, if I am not mistaken, hold that the moon is in bigness the
two and seventieth part of the earth; and Anaxagoras says, she is as
big as Peloponnesus. And Aristarchus shows the overthwart line or
diameter of the moon to have a proportion to that of the earth which
is less than if sixty were compared to nineteen, and somewhat greater
than an hundred and eight compared to forty and three. Whence it
happens that the earth, by reason of its greatness, wholly withdraws
the sun from our sight, for it is a great obstacle and opposition, and
lasts all the night. But although the moon sometimes hides all the
sun, yet that eclipse continues not so long nor is so far extended,
but there always appears about the circumference a certain brightness,
which permits not the darkness to be black, deep, and perfectly obscure.
And Aristotle (I mean the ancient philosopher of that name) rendering
the reason why there are oftener seen to happen eclipses of the moon
than of the sun, among other causes alleges this, that the sun is
eclipsed by the interposition of the moon, and the moon by that of the
earth, which is much greater and consequently oftener opposes itself.
And Posidonius thus defines this accident: The eclipse of the sun is
the conjunction of the sun and moon, the shadow of which darkens our
sight.[98] For there is no eclipse except to those whose sight the
shadow of the moon intercepting hinders them from seeing the sun. Now
in confessing that the shadow of the moon descends down to us, I know
not what he has left himself to say. It is certainly impossible for a
star to cast a shadow; for that which is not enlightened is called a
shadow, and light makes no shadow, but on the contrary drives it away.