[Sidenote: The Earth’s motion cannot be felt.] 119. One on the Earth can no more be sensible of it’s undisturbed motion on it’s Axis, than one in the cabin of a ship on smooth Water can be sensible of her motion when she turns gently and uniformly round. It is therefore no argument against the Earth’s diurnal motion that we do not feel it: nor is the apparent revolutions of the celestial bodies every day a proof of the reality of these motions; for whether we or they revolve, the appearance is the very same. A person looking through the cabin windows of a ship as strongly fancies the objects on land to go round when the ship turns, as if they were actually in motion. [Sidenote: To the different Planets the Heavens appear to turn round on different Axes.] 120. If we could translate ourselves from Planet to Planet, we should still find that the Stars would appear of the same magnitudes, and at the same distances from each other, as they do to us here; because the width of the remotest Planet’s Orbit bears no sensible proportion to the distance of the Stars. But then, the Heavens would seem to revolve about very different Axes; and consequently, those quiescent Points which are our Poles in the Heavens would seem to revolve about other points, which, though apparently in motion to us on Earth would be at rest as seen from any other Planet. Thus, the Axis of Venus, which lies almost at right Angles to the Axis of the Earth, would have it’s motionless Poles in two opposite points of the Heavens lying almost in our Equinoctial, where the motion appears quickest because it is performed in the greatest Circle. And the very Poles, which are at rest to us, have the quickest motion of all as seen from Venus. To Mars and Jupiter the Heavens appear to turn round with very different velocities on the same Axis, whose Poles are about 23-1/2 degrees from ours. Were we on Jupiter we should be at first amazed at the rapid motion of the Heavens; the Sun and Stars going round in 9 hours 56 minutes. Could we go from thence to Venus we should be as much surprised at the slowness of the heavenly motions: the Sun going but once round in 584 hours, and the Stars in 540. And could we go from Venus to the Moon we should see the Heavens turn round with a yet slower motion; the Sun in 708 hours, the Stars in 655. As it is impossible these various circumvolutions in such different times and on such different Axes can be real, so it is unreasonable to suppose the Heavens to revolve about our Earth more than it does about any other Planet. When we reflect on the vast distance of the fixed Stars, to which 162,000,000 of miles is but a point, we are filled with amazement at the immensity of their distance. But if we try to frame an idea of the extreme rapidity with which the Stars must move, if they move round the Earth in 24 hours, the thought becomes so much too big for our imagination, that we can no more conceive it than we do infinity or eternity.