The system of Tycho Brahe,[621] with some alteration and addition, has been
revived and contended for in our own day by a Dane, W. Zytphen,[622] who
has published _The Motion of the Sun in the Universe_, (second edition)
Copenhagen, 1865, 8vo, and _Le Mouvement Sideral_, 1865, 8vo. I make an
extract.
"How can one explain Copernically that the velocity of the Moon must be
added to the velocity of the Earth on the one place in the Earth's orbit,
to learn how far the Moon has advanced from one fixed star to another; but
in another place in the orbit these velocities must be subtracted (the
movements taking place in opposite directions) to attain the same result?
In the Copernican and other systems, it is well known that the Moon,
abstracting from the insignificant excentricity of the orbit, always in
twenty-four hours performs an equally long distance. Why has Copernicus
never been denominated Fundamentus or Fundator? Because he has never
convinced anybody so thoroughly that this otherwise so natural epithet has
occurred to the mind."
Really the second question is more effective against Newton than against
Copernicus; for it upsets gravity: the first is of great depth.
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