MYST. This fine allegory signifies that God cannot be known from superior or antecedent causes but from behind His back, that is, from results, for a little later He adds, "I will cover thine eyes with My hand." Thus the hand signifies those works which He has placed before anyone's eyes, and it indicates that He places man not in an obscure corner but in the center of the universe so that He might better and more easily than in heaven contemplate the universe and all His works through the sight of which, as through spectacles, the Sun, that is, God Himself, may be disclosed. And therefore we undertook this disputation concerning nature and natural things, so that even if they are but slightly explained, nevertheless we may attain from this disquisition an imperfect knowledge of the Creator and may break forth in His praises with all our might, that at length by degrees we may be borne on high and be blessed by the Divine reward; for this is indeed the supreme and final good for a man. Here endeth the Drama of Nature which Jean Bodin wrote while all France was aflame with civil war. FINIS APPENDIX D. A TRANSLATION OF A LETTER BY THOMAS FEYENS ON THE QUESTION: IS IT TRUE THAT THE HEAVENS ARE MOVED AND THE EARTH IS AT REST? (FEBRUARY, 1619) (_Thomæ Fieni Epistolica Quæstio_: An verum sit, coelum moveri et terram quiescere? Londini, 1655.) To the eminent and noble scholars, Tobias Matthias and George Gays: It is proved that the heavens are moved and the earth is stationary: First; by authority; for besides the fact that this is asserted by Aristotle and Ptolemy whom wellnigh all Philosophers and Mathematicians have followed by unanimous consent, except for Copernicus, Bernardus Patricius[474] and a very few others, the Holy Scriptures plainly attest it in at least two places which I have seen. In Joshua,[475] are the words: Steteruntque sol et luna donec ulcisceretur gens de inimicis suis. And a little further on: Stetit itaque sol in medio coeli, et non festinavit occumbere spatio unius diei, et non fuit antea et postea tam longa dies. The Scriptures obviously refer by these words to the motion of the _primum mobile_ by which the sun and the moon are borne along in their diurnal course and the day is defined; and it indicates that the heavens are moved as well as the _primum mobile_. Then Ecclesiastes, chapter 1,[476] reads: Generatio præterit, et generatio advenit, terra autem semper stat, oritur sol et occidit, et ad locum suum revertitur. [Footnote 474: Feyens probably refers here to Francesco Patrizzi, who was an enemy of the peripatetics and a great supporter of platonism. He died in 1597 at Rome, where Clement VIII had conferred on him the chair of philosophy.] [Footnote 475: Joshua X: 13-14.] [Footnote 476: Ecclesiastes I: 4.] Secondly, it is proved by reason. All the heavens and stars were made in man's behalf and, with other terrestrial bodies, are the servants of man to warm, light, and vivify him.