At Rest, However, In The Middle Of

Therefore I Would Not Have It Unknown To Your Holiness, The The Only Thing Which Induced Me To Look For Another Way Of Reckoning The Movements Of The Heavenly Bodies Was That I Knew That Mathematicians By No Means Agree In Their Investigation Thereof.

So If The Worth Of The Arts Were Measured By The Matter With Which They Deal, This Art-which Some Call Astronomy, Others Astrology, And Many Of The Ancients The Consummation Of Mathematics-would Be By Far The Most Outstanding. This Art Which Is As It Were The Head Of All The Liberal Arts And The One Most Worthy Of A Free Man Leans Upon Nearly All The Other Branches Of Mathe Matics. Arithmetic, Geometry, Optics, Geodesy, Mechanics, And Whatever Others, All Offer Themselves In Its Service.

To Know The Mighty Works Of God, To Comprehend His Wisdom And Majesty And Power; To Appreciate, In Degree, The Wonderful Workings Of His Laws, Surely All This Must Be A Pleasing And Acceptable Mode Of Worship To The Most High, To Whom Ignorance Cannot Be More Grateful Than Knowledge.

Therefore, In The Course Of The Work I Have Followed This Plan: I Describe In The First Book All The Positions Of The Orbits Together With The Movements Which I Ascribe To The Earth, In Order That This Book Might Contain, As It Were, The General Scheme Of The Universe.

So Far As Hypotheses Are Concerned, Let No One Expect Anything Certain From Astronomy, Which Cannot Furnish It, Lest He Accept As The Truth Ideas Conceived For Another Purpose, And Depart From This Study A Greater Fool Than When He Entered It.