Selected quad for the lemma: earth_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
earth_n	fix_a	motion_n	star_n	2,539	5	9.5176	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35745	A discourse of a method for the well guiding of reason, and the discovery of truth in the sciences; Discours de la méthode. English	Descartes, René, 1596-1650.	1649 (1649)	Wing D1129; ESTC R22748	43,779	138

a Goat but therefore we ought not to conclude that there is a Chimera in the world For reason doth not dictate to us that what we see or imagine so is true But it dictates that all our Idea's or notions ought to have some grounds of truth For it were not possible that God who is all perfect and all truth should have put them in us without that And because that our reasonings are never so evident nor so entire while we sleep as when we wake although sometimes our imaginations be then as much or more lively and express It also dictates to us that our thoughts seeing they cannot be all true by reason that we are not wholly perfect what they have of truth ought infallibly to occur in those which we have being awake rather then in our dreams PART V. I Should be glad to pursue this Discourse and shew you the whole Series of the following Truths which I have drawn from the former But because for this purpose it were now necessary for me to treat of severall questions which are controverted by the learned with whom I have no desire to imbroil my self I beleeve it better for me to abstain from it and so in generall onely to discover what they are that I may leave the wisest to judge whether it were profitable to inform the publick more particularly of them I alwayes remained constant to my resolution to suppose no other Principle but that which I now made use of for the demonstration of the Existence of God and of the Soul and to receive nothing for true which did not seem to me more clear and more certain then the demonstrations of Geometry had formerly done And yet I dare say that I have not onely found out the means to satisfie my self in a short time concerning all the principall difficulties which are usually treated in Philosophy But that also I have observed certain Laws which God hath so established in Nature and of which he hath imprinted such notions in our Souls that when we shall have made sufficient reflections upon them we cannot doubt but that they are exactly observed in whatsoever either is or is done in the World Then considering the connexion of these Laws me thinks I have discovered divers Truths more usefull and important then whatever I learn'd before or ever hop'd to learn But because I have endeavoured to lay open the principall of them in a Treatise which some considerations hinder me from publishing I can no way better make them known then by relating summarily what it contains I had a designe to comprehend all what I thought I knew before I would write it touching the nature of material things But even as Painters not being able equally well to represent upon a flat all the severall facies of a solid body chuse the principall of them which they place towards the light and shadowing the others make them appear no more then they do to our sight So fearing lest I should not bring into this Discourse all which was in my thoughts I onely undertook to set forth at large my conceptions touching the light and upon that occasion to add somewhat of the Sun and of the fix'd Stars by reason that it proceeds almost all from thence of the Heavens because they transmit it of the Planets of the Comets and of the Earth because they cause it to reflect and in particular of all Bodies which are on the earth whether for that they are either coloured or transparent or luminous and last of all of Man because he is the Spectator thereof As also in some mnner to shadow out all these things and that I might the more freely speak what I judg'd without being obliged to follow or to refute the opinions which are received amongst the Learned I resolved to leave all this world here to their disputes and to speak onely of what would happen in a new one if God now created some where in those imaginary spaces matter enough to compose it and that he diversly and without order agitated the severall parts of this matter so as to compose a Chaos of it as confused as the Poets could feign one and that afterwards he did nothing but lend his ordinary concurrence to Nature and leave her to work according to the Laws he hath established Thus first of all I described this Matter and endevoured to represent it such that me thinks there is nothing in the world more clear or more intelligible except what was beforesaid of God and of the Soul For even I expresly supposed that there was in it none of those forms and qualities which are disputed in the Schools nor generally any thing but that the knowledge thereof was so naturall to our understandings that we could not even feigne to be ignorant of it Besides I made known what the Laws of Nature were and without grounding my reasons on any other principles but on the infinite perfections of God I did endeavour to demonstrate all those which ●●ght be questioned and to make them appear to be such that although God had created divers worlds there could have been none where they were not observed Afterwards I shewed how the greater part of the Matter of this Chaos ought according to those Laws to dispose and order it self in a certain manner which would make it like our Heavens And how some of these parts were to compose an Earth and some Planets and Commets some others a Sun and fix'd Starrs And here enlarging my self on the subject of Light I at length explain'd what that light was which was to be in the Sun and Stars and thence how it travers'd in an instant the immense spaces of the Heavens and how it reflected it self from Planets and Commets towards the Earth I added also divers things touching the substance situation the motions and all the several qualities of these heavens and these stars So that I thought I had sa●● enough to make known That there is nothing remarkable in those of this world which ought not or at least could not appear altogether like to these of that world which I described Thence I came to speak particularly of the Earth how although I had expresly supposed that God had placed no weight in the Matter whereof it was composed yet all its parts exactly tended towards its center How that there being water and air upon its superficies the disposition of the Heavens and of the Starrs and chiefly of the Moon ought to cause a floud and an ebb which in all circumstances was like to that which we observe in our Seas And besides a certain course aswel of the water as of the air from East to West as is also observed between the Tropicks How the Mountains the Seas the Springs and Rivers might naturally be form'd therein and Metals run in the mines and Plants grow in the Fields and generally all bodies be therein engendered which are call'd mixt or composed And amongst other things