Great part of the third Dialogue is taken up with discussions on the parallax of the new stars of 1572 and 1604, in which Delambre notices that Galileo does not employ logarithms in his calculations, although their use had been known since Napier discovered them in 1616: the dialogue then turns to the annual motion "first taken from the Sun and conferred upon the Earth by Aristarchus Samius, and afterwards by Copernicus." Salviati speaks of his contemporary philosophers with great contempt—"If you had ever been worn out as I have been many and many a time with hearing what sort of stuff is sufficient to make the obstinate vulgar unpersuadable, I do not say to agree with, but even to listen to these novelties, I believe your wonder at finding so few followers of these opinions would greatly fall off. But little regard in my judgment is to be had of those understandings who are convinced and immoveably persuaded of the fixedness of the earth, by seeing that they are not able to breakfast this morning at Constantinople, and sup in the evening in Japan, and who feel satisfied that the earth, so heavy as it is, cannot climb up above the sun, and then come tumbling in a breakneck fashion down again!"[103] This remark serves to introduce several specious arguments against the annual motion of the earth, which are successively confuted, and it is shewn how readily the apparent stations and retrogradations of the planets are accounted for on this supposition. The following is one of the frequently recurring passages in which Galileo, whilst arguing in favour of the enormous distances at which the theory of Copernicus necessarily placed the fixed stars, inveighs against the arrogance with which men pretend to judge of matters removed above their comprehension. "_Simpl._ All this is very well, and it is not to be denied that the heavens may surpass in bigness the capacity of our imaginations, as also that God might have created it yet a thousand times larger than it really is, but we ought not to admit anything to be created in vain, and useless in the universe. Now whilst we see this beautiful arrangement of the planets, disposed round the earth at distances proportioned to the effects they are to produce on us for our benefit, to what purpose should a vast vacancy be afterwards interposed between the orbit of Saturn and the starry spheres, containing not a single star, and altogether useless and unprofitable? to what end? for whose use and advantage?—_Salv._ Methinks we arrogate too much to ourselves, Simplicio, when we will have it that the care of us alone is the adequate and sufficient work and bound, beyond which the divine wisdom and power does and disposes of nothing. I feel confident that nothing is omitted by the Divine Providence of what concerns the government of human affairs; but that there may not be other things in the universe dependant upon His supreme wisdom, I cannot for myself, by