The Earth is the Same as the Celestial Bodies
Table of Contents
I give 2 powerful demonstrations proving the earth to be very different from celestial bodies.
- Bodies that are generable corruptible, alterable, etc. are different from those that are ingenerable, incorruptible, inalterable, etc.
The earth is generable, corruptible, alterable, etc., while celestial bodies are ingenerable, incorruptible, inalterable, etc.
Therefore, the earth is very different from the celestial bodies.
With your first argument, you bring back to the table what has been standing there all day and has just now been carried away.
Formerly the minor premise was proved a priori, and now I wish to prove it a posteriori.
I shall prove the minor, because the major is obvious.
On earth there are continual generations, corruptions, alterations, etc., the like of which neither our senses nor the traditions or memories of our ancestors have ever detected in heaven. Hence:
- heaven is inalterable, etc.
- the earth alterable, etc. and therefore different from the heavens.
On earth I continually see herbs, plants, animals generating and decaying; winds, rains, tempests, storms arising; in a word, the appearance of the earth undergoing perpetual change.
None of these changes are to be discerned in celestial bodies, whose positions and configurations correspond exactly with everything men remember, without the generation of anything new there or the corruption of anything old.
My second argument is that naturally-dark bodies, devoid of light, are different from luminous bodies.
- The earth is dark
- The celestial bodies are full of light
If your basis is these visible experiences, then China and America are celestial bodies since you have never seen in them these changes which you see in Italy. Therefore, in your sense, they must be inalterable.
Even if I have never seen such alterations in China and America, there are reliable accounts of them.
Those counties are a pan of the earth like ours. So they are also alterable.
But why depend on the tales of others? Why not see it with your own eyes?
Because those countries are far from my view. They are so distant that our sight could not discover such alterations in them.
You have inadvertently revealed the fallacy of your argument.
You say that alterations which are near on earth cannot be seen in America because of the great distance.
So the same should apply to the moon which is far more distant.
If you believe in alterations in Mexico on the basis of news from there, what reports do you have from the moon to convince you that there are no alterations there?
You are unable to see alterations in heaven.
- Their distance prevents their news from reaching us.
But you cannot deduce that there are no news from them.
In the distant past, the Straits of Gibraltar, Abila and Calpe were joined together.
- This held the ocean in check
But these mountains were separated and allowed the sea to flood in to form the Mediterranean.
Such a change could easily have been seen by anyone then on the moon. Just so would the inhabitants of earth have discovered any such change in the moon.
Yet nothing of such sort has been seen on the moon. Hence, anything in the heavenly bodies are not alterable, etc.
Such a change in the moon could only be detected by us as some variation between the lighter and darker parts of the moon.
We do not have such observant selenographers on earth who for many years could have provided us with such exact selenography.
Simplicio, is the earth generable and corruptible before the Mediterranean inundation? Or did it begin to be so then?
Without a doubt, it generable and corruptible before that event. But that was so vast a mutation that it might have been observed as far as the moon.
If the earth was generable and corruptible before that flood, why may not the moon be equally so without any such change? Why is something necessary in the moon which means nothing on the earth?
Simplicio is altering the meaning a bit in this text of Aristotle and the other Peripatetics.
They say that the heavens are inalterable because not one star there has ever been seen to be generated or corrupted.
I thought otherwise.
I believe that Simplicio distorted this exposition of the text so that he might not burden the Master and his disciples with a more fantastic notion.
It is a folly to say: “The heavens are inalterable because stars are not generated or corrupted in them.”
Is there perhaps someone who has seen one terrestrial globe decay and another regenerated in its place?
All philosophers accept that:
- very few stars in the heavens are smaller than the earth
- very many are much bigger
So the decay of a star in heaven would be no less momentous than for the whole terrestrial globe to be destroyed!
Now if, in order to be able to introduce generation and corruption into the universe with certainty, it is necessary that as vast a body as a star must be corrupted and regenerated, then you had better give up the whole matter.
You will never see the terrestrial globe that vanishes instantly.