must needs be changes, and retrogressions of the fixed stars." What some interpret as retrogressions or regressions, and changes of the fixed stars, others explain as diversions: which terms can in no way be understood of axial motion, unless he meant that the Earth moved by the _Primum Mobile_ is borne and turned over other poles diverse even from those which correspond to the first sphære, which is altogether absurd. Other later theorists suppose that the eastern ocean ought to be impelled so into western regions by that motion, that those parts of the Earth which are dry and free from water would be daily flooded by the eastern ocean. But the ocean is not acted upon by that movement, since nothing opposes it; and even the whole atmosphere is carried round: And for that reason in the Earth's course all the things in the air are not left behind by us nor do they seem to move toward the West: Wherefore also the clouds {227} are at rest in the air, unless the force of the winds drive them; and objects which are projected into the air fall again into their own place. But those foolish folk who think that towers, temples, and buildings must necessarily be shaken and overthrown by the Earth's motion, may fear lest men at the Antipodes should slip off into an opposite orbe, or that ships when sailing round the entire [249]globe should (as soon as they have dipped under the plane of our horizon) fall into the opposite region of the sky. But those follies are old wives' gossip, and the rubbish of certain philosophizers, men who, when they essay to treat of the highest truths and the fabrick of the universe, and hazard anything, can scarce understand aught _ultra crepidam_. They would have the Earth to be the centre of a circle; and therefore to rest motionless amid the rotation. But neither the stars nor the wandering globes move about the Earth's centre: the high heaven also does not move circularly round the Earth's centre; nor if the Earth were in the centre, is it a centre itself, but a body around a centre. Nor is it confident with reason that the heavenly bodies of the Peripateticks should attend on a centre so decadent and perishable as that of the Earth. They think that Nature seeks rest for the generation of things, and for promoting their increase while growing; and that accordingly the whole Earth is at rest. And yet all generation takes place from motion, without which the universal nature of things would become torpid. The motion of the Sun, the motion of the Moon, cause changes; the motion of the Earth awakens the internal breath of the globe; animals themselves do not live without motion, and the ceaseless activity of the heart and arteries. For of no moment are the arguments for a simple straight motion toward the centre, that this is the only kind in the Earth, and that in a simple body there is one motion only and that a simple one. For that straight motion is only a