n whether the spreading of light takes time, let us consider
first whether there are any facts of experience which can convince us
to the contrary. As to those which can be made here on the Earth, by
striking lights at great distances, although they prove that light
takes no sensible time to pass over these distances, one may say with
good reason that they are too small, and that the only conclusion to
be drawn from them is that the passage of light is extremely rapid.
Mr. Des Cartes, who was of opinion that it is instantaneous, founded
his views, not without reason, upon a better basis of experience,
drawn from the Eclipses of the Moon; which, nevertheless, as I shall
show, is not at all convincing. I will set it forth, in a way a little
different from his, in order to make the conclusion more
comprehensible.

[Illustration]

Let A be the place of the sun, BD a part of the orbit or annual path
of the Earth: ABC a straight line which I suppose to meet the orbit of
the Moon, which is represented by the circle CD, at C.

Now if light requires time, for example one hour, to traverse the
space which is between the Earth and the Moon, it will follow that the
Earth having arrived at B, the shadow which it casts, or the
interruption of the light, will not yet have arrived at the point C,
but will only arrive there an hour after. It will then be one hour
after, reckoning from the moment when the Earth was at B, that the
Moon, arriving at C, will be obscured: but this obscuration or
interruption of the light will not reach the Earth till after another
hour. Let us suppose that the Earth in these two hours will have
arrived at E. The Earth then, being at E, will see the Eclipsed Moon
at C, which it left an hour before, and at the same time will see the
sun at A. For it being immovable, as I suppose with Copernicus, and
the light moving always in straight lines, it must always appear where
it is. But one has always observed, we are told, that the eclipsed
Moon appears at the point of the Ecliptic opposite to the Sun; and yet
here it would appear in arrear of that point by an amount equal to the
angle GEC, the supplement of AEC. This, however, is contrary to
experience, since the angle GEC would be very sensible, and about 33
degrees. Now according to our computation, which is given in the
Treatise on the causes of the phenomena of Saturn, the distance BA
between the Earth and the Sun is about twelve thousand diameters of
the E