We Regard It As A Certainty That

I Can Easily Conceive, Most Holy Father, That As Soon As Some People Learn That In This Book Which I Have Written Concerning The Revolutions Of The Heavenly Bodies, I Ascribe Certain Motions To The Earth, They Will Cry Out At Once That I And My Theory Should Be Rejected.

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.

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.

Yet The Widespread Planetary Theories, Advanced By Ptolemy And Most Other Astronomers, Although Consistent With The Numerical Data, Seemed Likewise To Present No Small Difficulty. For These Theories Were Not Adequate Unless They Also Conceived Certain Equalizing Circles, Which Made The Planet Appear To Move At All Times With Uniform Velocity Neither On Its Deferent Sphere Nor About Its Own Epicycle's Center.

In The Midst Of All Dwells The Sun. For Who Could Set This Luminary In Another Or Better Place In This Most Glorious Temple, Than Whence He Can At One And The Same Time Brighten The Whole.