If There Be Some Who, Though Ignorant

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.

If There Be Some Who, Though Ignorant Of All Mathematics . . . Dare To Reprove This Work, Because Of Some Passage Of Scripture, Which They Have Miserably Warped To Their Purpose, I Regard Them Not, And Even Despise Their Rash Judgement.

Not Only The Phenomena Of The Others Followed From This, But Also It So Bound Together Both The Order And Magnitude Of All The Planets And The Spheres And The Heaven Itself, That In No Single Part Could One Thing Be Altered Without Confusion Among The Other Parts And In All The Universe.

I Therefore Took This Opportunity And Also Began To Consider The Possibility That The Earth Moved. Although It Seemed An Absurd Opinion, Nevertheless, Because I Knew That Others Before Me Had Been Granted The Liberty Of Imagining Whatever Circles They Wished To Represent The Phenomena Of The Stars, I Thought That I Likewise Would Readily Be Allowed To Test Whether, By Assuming Some Motion Of The Earth's, More Dependable Representations Than Theirs Could Be Found For The Revolutions Of The Heavenly Spheres.

When, Therefore, I Had Long Considered This Uncertainty Of Traditional Mathematics, It Began To Weary Me That No More Definite Explanation Of The Movement Of The World-machine Established In Our Behalf By The Best And Most Systematic Builder Of All, Existed Among The Philosophers Who Had Studied So Exactly In Other Respects The Minutest Details In Regard To The Sphere.