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admitted : the question then arose, was it suspendedmotionless in the universe, as the centre of the heavenlymotions ; or did it of necessity, as some argued, fromthe supposed impossibility of its remaining unsupported,revolve round another body ? The conclusions of Co-pernicus were marked with caution and deliberation.Whether he was really not superior to the puerilities ofthe Aristotelian arguments, or whether he adopted thatstyle of reasoning in order, by conforming himself to theprejudices of those he addressed, to have the greaterchance of convincing them, may be matter of question.At any rate, though many of his arguments are justand sensible, yet, in several instances, he certainly runsinto a maze of childish subtleties worthy of the mostdevoted disciple of the schools.
He contends, with great perspicuity and soundness,that if we suppose the distance of the earth from thefixed stars to be infinitely great, compared with its dis-tance from the centre of the universe ; but on the con-trary, this distance to be very considerable, whencompared with the orbits of the planets; then all thephenomena may be just as well explained, by supposingthe earth to revolve on its axis from west to east intwenty-four hours, and to have, besides this, a motionof translation in its orbit, as by supposing the earthimmovable, while the sun, planets, and fixed stars re-volve round it.
That the earth itself is a mere point compared withthe distance of the fixed stars, was admitted, but Co-pernicus well remarked, that it by no means followedthat the earth is at rest in the centre of the universe ;on the contrary, he says, it seems the more extraor-dinary, that such a vast circumference should revolvein twenty-four hours, rather than this mere pointwithin it, the earth. To the arguments of the Aristo-telians, and in particular those of Ptolemy , before re-ferred to, Copernicus replied in the same style, byalleging that the earth's motion was of the naturaland not of the violent kind, and that natural motions