Part 26

43.

A sound is produced by the movement of the air in friction against a dense body, and should it be produced by two weighty bodies it is owing to the atmosphere which surrounds them, and this friction consumes the bodies, so that it follows that the spheres in their friction, owing to there being no atmosphere between them, do not generate sound. And if this friction were a fact, during the many centuries the spheres have revolved they would be consumed by the immense velocity expended daily; and even if they produce sound, the sound could not travel, {160} because the sound caused by percussion under water is scarcely noticeable, and it would be less than noticeable in the case of dense bodies. The friction of polished bodies produces no sound, and similar result would be produced in the contact or friction of the spheres; and if the spheres are not polished in their contact and friction, it follows that they are rough.

Again, their contact is not continuous; this being the case a vacuum is produced, which it has been proved does not exist in nature. Therefore we conclude that friction would have consumed the ends of each sphere, and in proportion as a sphere has a greater velocity in the centre than at the poles, it would be consumed to a higher degree at the centre than at the poles; and then the friction would cease, and the sound would cease also, and the spheres would cease to revolve unless one sphere revolved eastward and the other northward.

44.

Worlds gravitate in the midst of their own elements. The yellow or yolk of an egg remains in the middle of the albumen without moving on either side, and is lighter or heavier or equal to this albumen; and if it is lighter it ought to rise above all the albumen and stop in contact with the shell of the egg; and if it is heavier it ought {161} to sink; and if it is equal to it, it can stand at one of the ends as well as in the centre or below.

45.

The object of my book is to prove that the ocean, with the other seas, by means of the sun causes our world to shine like the moon and to appear as a star to other worlds; and this I will prove.

46.

In your discourse you must prove that the earth is a star like the moon, and thus you will bear witness to the glory of our universe! And thus you must discourse on the size of many stars.

47.

How the earth is a star. The earth, in the midst of the sphere of water which clothes the greater part of it, taking its light from the sun and shining in the universe like the other stars, shows itself to be a star as well.

48.

First of all define the eye; then show how the twinkling of a star exists really in the eye, and why one star should twinkle more than another, and how the rays of the stars are born in the eye. Say, that if the twinkling of the stars were, as it appears to be, really in the stars, that this {162} twinkling appears to extend in proportion to the body of the star. The star, therefore, being larger than the earth, this motion made in an instant of time would in its velocity double the size of the star. Then prove that the surface of the atmosphere, contiguous to fire and the surface of fire, where it ends, is the point in which the rays of the sun penetrate and bear the image of the celestial bodies which are large when they rise and set, and small when they are on the meridian.

49.

The earth is not the centre of the orbit of the sun, nor the centre of the universe, but in the centre of its companion elements and united with them; and if any one were to stand on the moon when the moon and the sun are beneath us, our earth, with its element of water, would appear and shine for him just as the moon appears and shines for us.

50.

The earth, shining like the moon, has lost a great part of its ancient splendour by the decrease of the waters.

51.

Nothing is generated in a place where is no sentient vegetable and rational life; feathers grow on birds and change every year; coats grow on animals and are changed every year, with some {163} exceptions, like the lion's beard and the cat's fur, and such; grass grows in the fields and leaves on the trees; and every year they are renewed in great part. Thus we can say that the spirit of growth is the soul of the earth, the soil its flesh, the ordered arrangement of rocks its bones, of which mountains are formed, the tufa its tendons; its blood the veins of water which surround its heart, which is the ocean; its breathing and increase and decrease of blood in the pulses the ebb and flood of the sea; and the heat of the spirit of the world is fire which pervades the earth, and the vital soul dwells in the fires which from various apertures of the earth issue in springs and sulphur minerals and volcanoes, as at Mount Etna in Sicily and in many other places.

52.

The ancients called man the world in miniature, and certainly the name is a happy one, because man being composed of earth, water, air and fire, the body of the earth resembles the body of man. As man has in him bones for the support and framework of his flesh, likewise in the world the rocks are the supports of the earth; as man has in him a pool of blood in which the lungs rise and fall in their breathing, so the body of the earth has its ocean which rises and falls every six hours as if the world breathed; as from the aforesaid pool of blood veins issue which {164} ramify throughout the human body, so does the ocean fill the body of the earth with innumerable veins of water. The body of the earth lacks sinews, which do not exist because sinews are made for movement, and the world being in perpetual stability no movement occurs, and there being no movement, sinews are not necessary; but in all other points they resemble each other greatly.

53.

Water is the driver of nature.

54.

In explaining the action of water remember to cite experience first and then reason.

55.

Do not forget that you must put forward propositions adducing the above-mentioned facts as illustrations, not as propositions,--that would be too simple.

56.