o be
above, another below. But in his Fourth Book of Things Possible, having
supposed a certain middle place and middle region, he says that the
world is situated there. The words are these: "Wherefore, if it is to be
said of the world that it is corruptible, this seems to want proof; yet
nevertheless it rather appears to me to be so. However, its occupation
of the place wherein it stands cooperates very much towards its immunity
from corruption, because it is in the midst; since if it were conceived
to be anywhere else, corruption would absolutely happen to it." And
again, a little after: "For so also in a manner has essence happened
eternally to possess the middle place, being immediately from the
beginning such as it is; so that both by another manner and through this
chance it admits not any corruption, and is therefore eternal." These
words have one apparent and visible contradiction, to wit, his admitting
a certain middle place and middle region infinity. They have also a
second, more obscure indeed, but withal more absurd than this. For
thinking that the world would not have remained incorruptible if its
situation had happened to have been in any other part of the vacuum,
he manifestly appears to have feared lest, the parts of essence moving
towards the middle, there should be a dissolution and corruption of the
world. Now this he would not have feared, had he not thought that bodies
do by nature tend from every place towards the middle, not of essence,
but of the region containing essence; of which also he has frequently
spoken, as of a thing impossible and contrary to Nature; for that (as
he says) there is not in the vacuum any difference by which bodies are
drawn rather this way than that way, but the construction of the world
is the cause of motion, bodies inclining and being carried from every
side to the centre and middle of it. It is sufficient to this purpose,
to set down the text out of his Second Book of Motion; for having
discoursed, that the world indeed is a perfect body, but that the parts
of the world are not perfect, because they have in some sort respect to
the whole and are not of themselves; and going forward concerning its
motion, as having been framed by Nature to be moved by all its parts
towards compaction and cohesion, and not towards dissolution and
breaking, he says thus: "But the universe thus tending and being moved
to the same point, and the arts having the same motion from the nature