And as a matter of fact, I found first in Cicero that Hicetas thought that the Earth moved. And afterwards I found in Plutarch that there were some others of the same opinion ... Therefore I also, having found occasion, began to meditate upon the mobility of the Earth. And although the opinion seemed absurd ... I knew that others before me had been granted the liberty of constructing whatever circles they pleased in order to demonstrate astral phenomena. And so ... I finally discovered ... that if the movements of the other wandering stars are correlated with the circular movement of the Earth, and if the movements are computed in accordance with the revolution of each planet, not only do all their phenomena follow from that but also this correlation binds together so closely the order and magnitudes of all the planets and of their spheres ... and the heavens themselves that nothing can be shifted around in any part of them without disrupting the remaining parts and the universe as a whole.
Introduction to De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) translated by C. G. Wallis in Great Books of the Western World edited by R. M. Hutchins and cited in Encyclopedia Britannica 16 (Chicago,1939) and then by S. Sambursky in Physical Thought from the Presocratics to the Quantum Physicists (Hutchinson, London, 1974) p. 178. Parts cited by E.A. Burtt in The Metaphysical Founda¬tions of Modern Science (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1932, reprinted 1980) p. 49.
Introduction to De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (1543) translated by C. G. Wallis in Great Books of the Western World edited by R. M. Hutchins and cited in Encyclopedia Britannica 16 (Chicago,1939) and then by S. Sambursky in Physical Thought from the Presocratics to the Quantum Physicists (Hutchinson, London, 1974) p. 178. Parts cited by E.A. Burtt in The Metaphysical Founda¬tions of Modern Science (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1932, reprinted 1980) p. 49.
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