Nicolaus Copernicus - De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (1543)

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More stars in the north are seen not to set, while in the south certain stars are no longer seen to rise.

Nicolaus Copernicus
So, influenced by these advisors and this hope, I have at length allowed my friends to publish the work, as they had long besought me to do.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Not a few other very eminent and scholarly men made the same request, urging that I should no longer through fear refuse to give out my work for the common benefit of students of Mathematics.

Nicolaus Copernicus
I shall now recall to mind that the motion of the heavenly bodies is circular, since the motion appropriate to a sphere is rotation in a circle.

Nicolaus Copernicus
At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun. For, in this most beautiful temple, who would place this lamp in another or better position than that from which it can light up the whole thing at the same time?

Nicolaus Copernicus
Hence I feel no shame in asserting that this whole region engirdled by the moon, and the center of the earth, traverse this grand circle amid the rest of the planets in an annual revolution around the sun. Near the sun is the center of the universe. Moreover, since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth.

Nicolaus Copernicus
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.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Therefore, having obtained the opportunity from these sources, I too began to consider the mobility of the earth.

Nicolaus Copernicus
We regard it as a certainty that the earth, enclosed between poles, is bounded by a spherical surface.

Nicolaus Copernicus
The earth also is spherical, since it presses upon its center from every direction.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be made clearer in their proper place.

Nicolaus Copernicus
In so many and such important ways, then, do the planets bear witness to the earth's mobility.

Nicolaus Copernicus
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.

Nicolaus Copernicus
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.

Nicolaus Copernicus
If perchance there should be foolish speakers who, together with those ignorant of all mathematics, will take it upon themselves to decide concerning these things, and because of some place in the Scriptures wickedly distorted to their purpose, should dare to assail this my work, they are of no importance to me, to such an extent do I despise their judgment as rash.

Nicolaus Copernicus
The earth together with its surrounding waters must in fact have such a shape as its shadow reveals, for it eclipses the moon with the arc of a perfect circle.

Nicolaus Copernicus
For a traveler going from any place toward the north, that pole of the daily rotation gradually climbs higher, while the opposite pole drops down an equal amount.

Nicolaus Copernicus
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.

Nicolaus Copernicus
We are taught all this [the motion of the earth on its axis and around the sun] by the order of succession, in which those phenomena (various planetary happenings) follow each other, and by the harmony of the world, if we will only, as the saying goes, look at the matter with both eyes.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Although all the good arts serve to draw man's mind away from vices and lead it toward better things, this function can be more fully performed by this art, which also provides extraordinary intellectual pleasure.

Nicolaus Copernicus
For I am not so enamoured of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them.

Nicolaus Copernicus
The massive bulk of the earth does indeed shrink to insignificance in comparison with the size of the heavens.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Yet if anyone believes that the earth rotates, surely he will hold that its motion is natural, not violent.

Nicolaus Copernicus
I am not so enamored of my own opinions that I disregard what others may think of them. I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavor to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God. Yet I hold that completely erroneous views should be shunned.

Nicolaus Copernicus
For it is the duty of an astronomer to compose the history of the celestial motions through careful and expert study.

Nicolaus Copernicus
We find then in this arrangement an admirable harmony of the world, and a dependable, harmonious interconnexion of the motion and the size of the paths, such as otherwise cannot be discovered. For here the penetrating observer can note why the forward and the retrograde movement of Jupiter appears greater than that of Saturn, and smaller than that of Mars, and again greater with Venus than with Mercury; and why such retrogression appears oftener with Saturn than with Jupiter, less often with Mars and Venus than with Mercury. Moreover, why Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars, when they rise in the evening, appear greater than when they disappear and reappear [with the sun]... And all this results from the same cause, namely the motion of the earth.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Therefore, when I considered this carefully, the contempt which I had to fear because of the novelty and apparent absurdity of my view, nearly induced me to abandon utterly the work I had begun.

Nicolaus Copernicus
For when a ship is floating calmly along, the sailors see its motion mirrored in everything outside, while on the other hand they suppose that they are stationary, together with everything on board. In the same way, the motion of the earth can unquestionably produce the impression that the entire universe is rotating.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Accordingly, since nothing prevents the earth from moving, I suggest that we should now consider also whether several motions suit it, so that it can be regarded as one of the planets. For, it is not the center of all the revolutions.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Pouring forth its seas everywhere, then, the ocean envelops the earth and fills its deeper chasms.

Nicolaus Copernicus