If the Sun was to go round the Earth in a day, he must travel upwards of 300,000 miles in a minute: but the Stars being at least 10,000 times as far as the Sun from us, those about the Equator must move 10,000 times as quick. And all this to serve no other purpose than what can be as fully and much more simply obtained by the Earth’s turning round eastward as on an Axis, every 24 hours, causing thereby an apparent diurnal motion of the Sun westward, and bringing about the alternate returns of day and night. [Illustration: Pl. II.] [Sidenote: Objections against the Earth’s diurnal motion answered.] 121. As to the common objections against the Earth’s motion on it’s Axis, they are all easily answered and set aside. That it may turn without being seen or felt to do so, has been already shewn, § 119. But some are apt to imagine that if the Earth turns eastward (as it certainly does if it turns at all) a ball fired perpendicularly upward in the air must fall considerably westward of the place it was projected from. This objection, which at first seems to have some weight, will be found to have none at all when we consider that the gun and ball partake of the Earth’s motion; and therefore the ball being carried forward with the air as quick as the Earth and air turn, must fall down again on the same place. A stone let fall from the top of a main-mast, if it meets with no obstacle, falls on the deck as near the foot of the mast when the ship sails as when it does not. And if an inverted bottle, full of liquor, be hung up to the cieling of the cabin, and a small hole be made in the cork to let the liquor drop through on the floor, the drops will fall just as far forward on the floor when the ship sails as when it is at rest. And gnats or flies can as easily dance among one another in a moving cabin as in a fixed chamber. As for those scripture expressions which seem to contradict the Earth’s motion, this general answer may be made to them all, _viz._ ’tis plain from many instances that the Scriptures were never intended to instruct us in Philosophy or Astronomy; and therefore, on those subjects, expressions are not always to be taken in the strictest sense; but for the most part as accommodated to the common apprehensions of mankind. Men of sense in all ages, when not treating of the sciences purposely, have followed this method: and it would be in vain to follow any other in addressing ourselves to the vulgar, or bulk of any community. _Moses_ calls the Moon A GREAT LUMINARY (as it is in the Hebrew) as well as the Sun: but the Moon is known to be an opaque body, and the smallest that Astronomers have observed in the Heavens and shines upon us not by any inherent light of it’s own, but by reflecting the light of the Sun. If _Moses_ had known this, and told the _Israelites_ so, they would have stared at him; and considered him rather as a madman than as a person commissioned by the Almighty to be their leader.