The celestial worlds discover'd : $b or, conjectures concerning the inhabitants, plants and productions of the worlds in the planetsHuygens, Christiaan
Science
The celestial worlds discover'd : $b or, conjectures concerning the inhabitants, plants and productions of the worlds in the planets
Huygens, Christiaan
Cosmology -- Early works to 1800; Life on other planets -- Early works to 1800; Plurality of worlds -- Early works to 1800
Or what if beyond ſuch a determinate Space he has left an infinite
Vacuum; to ſhow, how inconſiderable all that he has made is, to what
his Power could, had he ſo pleas’d, have produced? But I am falling,
before I am aware, into that intricate Diſpute of Infinity: Therefore I
ſhall wave this, and not, as ſoon as I am free of one, take upon me
another difficult Task. All that I ſhall do more is to add ſomewhat of
my Opinion concerning the whole World, as it is a Place for the
Reception of the Suns or fix’d Stars, every one of which, I have
ſhowed, may have their Planetary Syſtems about them.
[Every Sun has a Vortex round it, very different from thoſe of Cartes.]
I am of Opinion then that every Sun is ſurrounded with a Whirl-pool or
Vortex of Matter in a very ſwift Motion; tho’ not in the leaſt like
Cartes’s either in their Bulk, or manner of Motion. For Cartes makes
his ſo large, as every one of them to touch all the others round them,
in a flat Surface, juſt as you have ſeen the Bladders that Boys blow up
in Soap-ſuds do; and would have the whole Vortex to move round the ſame
way. But the Angles of every Vortex will be no ſmall hindrance to ſuch
a Motion. Then the whole Matter moving round at once, upon the Axis as
it were of a Cylinder, did not a little puzzle him in giving Reaſons
for the Roundneſs of the Sun: which however they may ſatisfy ſome
People that do not conſider them, really prove nothing of the Matter.
In this æthereal Matter the Planets float, and are carried round by its
Motion: and the thing that keeps them in their own Orbs is, that they
themſelves, and the Matter in which they ſwim, equally ſtrive to fly
off from the Center of this Motion. Againſt all which there are many
Aſtronomical Objections, ſome of which I touch’d upon in my Eſſay of
the Cauſes of Gravity. Where I gave another Account of the Planets not
deſerting their own Orbs; which is their Gravitation towards the Sun. I
ſhow’d there the Cauſes of that Gravitation, and cannot but wonder that
Cartes, the firſt Man that ever began to talk reaſonably of that
Matter, ſhould never meddle with, or light on it. Plutarch in his Book
of the Moon above-mentioned ſays, that ſome of the Ancients were of
Opinion, that the Reaſon of the Moon’s keeping her Orbit was, that the
Force of her Circular Motion was exactly equal to her Gravity, the one
of which pull’d her to, as much as the other forc’d off from the
Centre. And in our Age Alphonſus Borellus, who was of this ſame Opinion
in the other Planets as well as the Moon, makes the Gravitation of the
primary Planets to be towards the Sun, as that of the Secondary is
towards the Planets round which they move: Which Sir Iſaac Newton has
more fully explain’d, with a great deal of Pains and Subtilty; and how
from that Cauſe proceeds the Ellipticity of the Orbs of the Planets,
found out by Kepler. According to my Notion of the Gravitation of the
Planets to the Sun, the Matter of his Vortex muſt not at all move the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account