cagninus, Telesius, Kepler, Rotman, Gilbert, Digges, Galileo,
Campanella, and especially by [3098]Lansbergius, _naturae, rationi, et
veritati consentaneum_, by Origanus, and some [3099]others of his
followers. For if the earth be the centre of the world, stand still, and
the heavens move, as the most received [3100]opinion is, which they call
_inordinatam coeli dispositionem_, though stiffly maintained by Tycho,
Ptolemeus, and their adherents, _quis ille furor_? &c. what fury is that,
saith [3101]Dr. Gilbert, _satis animose_, as Cabeus notes, that shall drive
the heavens about with such incomprehensible celerity in twenty-four hours,
when as every point of the firmament, and in the equator, must needs move
(so [3102]Clavius calculates) 176,660 in one 246th part of an hour, and an
arrow out of a bow must go seven times about the earth, whilst a man can
say an Ave Maria, if it keep the same space, or compass the earth 1884
times in an hour, which is _supra humanam cogitationem_, beyond human
conceit: _ocyor et jaculo, et ventos, aequante sagitta_. A man could not
ride so much ground, going 40 miles a day, in 2904 years, as the firmament
goes in 23 hours: or so much in 203 years, as the firmament in one minute:
_quod incredibile videtur_: and the [3103]pole-star, which to our thinking
scarce moveth out of his place, goeth a bigger circuit than the sun, whose
diameter is much larger than the diameter of the heaven of the sun, and
20,000 semi-diameters of the earth from us, with the rest of the fixed
stars, as Tycho proves. To avoid therefore these impossibilities, they
ascribe a triple motion to the earth, the sun immovable in the centre of
the whole world, the earth centre of the moon, alone, above [Symbol: Mars]
and [Symbol: Mercury], beneath [Symbol: Saturn], [Symbol: Jupiter],
[Symbol: Mars] (or as [3104]Origanus and others will, one single motion to
the earth, still placed in the centre of the world, which is more probable)
a single motion to the firmament, which moves in 30 or 26 thousand years;
and so the planets, Saturn in 30 years absolves his sole and proper motion,
Jupiter in 12, Mars in 3, &c. and so solve all appearances better than any
way whatsoever: calculate all motions, be they in _longum_ or _latum_,
direct, stationary, retrograde, ascent or descent, without epicycles,
intricate eccentrics, &c. _rectius commodiusque per unicum motum terrae_,
saith Lansbergius, much more certain than by those Alphonsine, or an