The discovery of a world in the moone : $b or, A discovrse tending to prove that 'tis probable there may be another habitable world in that planetWilkins, John
Philosophy
The discovery of a world in the moone : $b or, A discovrse tending to prove that 'tis probable there may be another habitable world in that planet
Wilkins, John
Astronomy -- Early works to 1800; Moon -- Early works to 1800
Suppose ABCD to represent the appearance of the Moones body being in a
sextile, you may see some brighter parts separated at a pretty distance
from the other, which can bee nothing else but a reflexion of the
Sunne-beames upon some parts that are higher then the rest, and those
obscure gibbosities which stand out towards the enlightened parts must
bee such hollow and deepe places whereto the rayes cannot reach, but
when the Moone is got further off from the Sunne, and come to that
fulnesse, as this line BD doth represent her under, then doe these parts
also receive an equall light, excepting onely that difference which doth
appeare betwixt their sea and land. And if you do consider how any
rugged body would appeare, being enlightned, you would easily conceive
that it must necessarily seeme under some such gibbous unequall forme,
as the Moone is here represented. Now for the infallibility of these
appearances, I shall referre the reader to that which hath beene said in
the 6th Proposition.
But _Cæsar la Galla_ affirmes, that all these appearances may consist
with a plaine superficies, if wee suppose the parts of the body to be
some of them, _Diaphanous_, and some opacous; and if you object that the
light which is conveyed to any diaphanous part in a plaine superficies
must be by a continued line, whereas here there appeare many brighter
parts among the obscure at some distance from the rest. To this he
answers, it may arise from some secret conveyances and channels within
her body, that doe consist of a more diaphanous matter which being
covered over with an opacious superficies, the light passing through
them may breake out a great way off, whereas the other parts betwixt may
still remaine darke. Just as the River _Arethusa_ in _Sicile_ which
runnes under ground for a great way, and afterwards breakes out againe.
But because this is one of the chiefest fancies whereby hee thinkes hee
hath fully answered the arguments of this opinion, I will therefore set
downe his answere in his owne words, lest the Reader might suspect more
in them then I have expressed.[1]
_Non est impossibile cœcos ductus diaphani & perspicui corporis,
sed opacâ superficie protendi, usque in diaphanam aliquam ex profundo
in superficiem, emergentem partem, per quos ductus lumen longo
postmodum interstitio erumpat, &c._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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