would seem that the Physician stood in need of the Patient; that the Strong should yield to the Weak; the Superior serve the Inferior; and that the Ship did not sail about the Land, but the Land about the Ship. "Now if you cannot easily conceive how so ponderous a Body can move; Pray, tell me, are the Stars and Heavens, which, in your Opinion, are so solid, any way lighter? Besides, it is not so difficult for us, who are assured of the Roundness of the Earth, to infer its motion from its Figure: But why do ye suppose the Heaven to be round, seeing you cannot know it, and that yet, if it hath not this Figure, it is impossible it can move? I object not to you your _Excentricks_ nor _Epicycles_,[3] which you cannot explain but very confusedly, and which are out of doors in my Systeme. Let's reflect only on the natural Causes of that Motion. To make good your Hypothesis, you are forced to have recourse to Spirits or _Intelligences_, that move and govern your Spheres. But for my part, without disturbing the repose of the supreme Being, who, without doubt, hath made Nature entirely perfect, and whose Wisdom ought so to have compleated her, that being perfect in one thing, she should not have been defective in another: I say, that the Beams and Influences of the Sun, darting Circularly upon the Earth, make it to turn as with a turn of the Hand we make a Globe to move; or, which is much the same, that the Steams which continually evaporate from that side of it which the Sun shines upon, being reverberated by the Cold of the middle Region, rebound upon it, and striking obliquely do of necessity make it whirle about in that manner. "The Explication of the other Motions[4] is less perplexed still; for pray, consider a little" At these words the Vice-Roy interrupted me: "I had rather," said he, "you would excuse your self from that trouble; for I have read some Books of _Gassendus_[5] on that subject: And hear what one of our Fathers, who maintained your Opinion one day, answered me. 'Really,' said he, 'I fancy that the Earth does move, not for the Reasons alledged by _Copernicus_; but because Hell-fire being shut up in the Center of the Earth, the damned, who make a great bustle to avoid its Flames, scramble up to the Vault, as far as they can from them, and so make the Earth to turn, as a Turn-spit[6] makes the Wheel go round when he runs about in it.'"