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virtue_n draw_v iron_n loadstone_n 1,525 5 13.0457 5 true
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A28817 A new treatise proving a multiplicity of worlds that the planets are regions inhabited and the earth a star, and that it is out of the center of the world in a third heaven, and turns round before the sun which is fixed : and other most rare and curious things / by Peter Borell ...; Discours nouveau prouvant la pluralité des mondes. English Borel, Pierre, 1620?-1671.; Sashott, D. 1658 (1658) Wing B3753; ESTC R19665 37,952 224

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Soul and by his exquisite Meditations rise up to the meditation and contemplation of these Worlds When once we are well acquainted with it and freed from all Preoccupation nothing can be found sweeter pleasanter and more consonant to truth What Patents and particular priviledges have they who believe the contrary that we should adhere to them and our belief should be ruled by them as if it were under their commands Men feign and forge to us five Zones in Heaven and seen other things that are nothing but dreams and foolish fancies as if they had been there above to see it We may say the same to them as Diogenes said to such other creatures How long is it since thou camest from Heaven It 's then as lawful for us to establish new Maxims as for them and to believe in the strength of our reason what we here have attempted and what others say with reason or appearance of truth O that Nature would once open us her bosome and plainly shew us the direction and Government of its motion with what is contained in those great and vaste bodies which sparkle and glister in Heaven What abuses and grosse mistakes should we find in all Sciences Chap. XXIII Wherein the same is proved by an Argument taken from the place where the Clouds stay without going farther WE have here above spoken of the Clouds and thence have drawn an Argument to assert this our opinion we may yet draw this from them viz. that the Clouds and vapours being light should ascend without limitation untill that they were lost from our sight if there were not some other terrestrial Globes in Heaven nor any other attraction then that of the Center of the Earth but we may observe even in the hottest of Summer that the Clouds do not ascend above 3. miles and the strongest vapours that are not above 30 miles whence we must infer that they ascend unto the limit of the activity and attraction of the center of the Earth not being able to go beyond because it would be to bend downward viz. towards the Center of some other terrestriall Globe But that I may better be understood it 's to be observed that as the Loadstone hath a certain inward virtue to draw iron or to move the Needle of the Sea-compasse unto such a distance and no farther so likewise the Earth which by the opinion of some is a great Loadstone whose circumference and activity is extended towards the Moon unto such a certain heighth and the other Stars also have such like circumference wherunto their virtue attraction may reach Insomuch that the Clouds having attained unto that distance which makes a middle between us and the Moon there they are stayed not being suffered to go beyond it because then they would descend towards the Moon or some other Stars which would be contrary to their nature which is to rise upward still so that if a ponderous body as a stone being cast up could go beyond the Earth's attractive point it would not fall back upon the Earth but upon that Star whose attractive Center should reach unto that place whither the stone was cast therefore hath Bacon said in his Book de progressu Scientiarum that Gilbert did not doubt incongruously That the bodies of weight and ponderosity being at a far distance from the Earth would by little and little forsake their motion towards things below Chap. XXIV Containing a Reason drawn from the Bird of Paradise THe new World discovered by our Fathers amongst those infinite riches and rare things it communicates to us makes us partakers of a Bird called by the Indians Manucodiata that is to say the Bird of God or of Paradise This Bird is so beautiful that no one in the Earth is to be compared to it its figure is of so rare a form and so extraordinary that never the like hath been found for it hath neither feet nor wings but is clothed with a skin of feathers made otherwise then that of other birds it 's not found but dead either upon the Earth or in the Sea no body ever saw its eggs nor its nest and it 's asserted that it lives by the Air this Bird never being found upon Earth is it not confonant to Reason that it may come from some other Starre where it lives and breeds and that having flown higher and beyond the attractive Center of that earth or Star where he lived he dyeth by changing his Ayr unto that which is not proper and natural and dying falls upon this Earth Now if birds be found in the Stars there also may other living Creatures be having all the same right of habitation And grant that what some object be true that it hath feet but that they are very short or that its feet are cut that it may appear the rarer yet it hinders not the consequence drawn from it provided that the other circumstances of its nature be true for if it hath feet it must be understood of some of its species onely for Aldrovandus mentions five or six sorts of them whereof some have feet and some none Chap. XXV Wherein is alledged an Argument taken from the Eclipses BEfore the Creation of this whole Fabrick God did inlighten himself and contemplate himself he was a sealed Book which at length is opened and hath set forth to the view that which remained in Himself wherefore the whole World is nothing else then an evident image an Idea of his hidden God-head he is through it all as our soul is throughout all our body and by his will encompasses all the motions of the spheres having spread through them all the Aires as a scrowl which folding it self away at the last day shall be reduced to its former Silence or rather to Nothing This wonderful order thus by him established may be seen in the constant and unchangeable course of the Planets upon which the Astrologians make some certain Almanacks for many years together and foretell the eclipses of Ages to come without missing a moment of time These Stars being all of one and the same nature do eclipse one another the Earth eclipses the Moon the Moon the Sun and so all the rest if their small body is not overcome by the bignesse of those they intend to darken as it s testified by Averroe's Observation who hath seen Mercury in the center of the Sun which seemed to grow in it its light if it hath any being covered and put out Now from these Eclipses or want of light in the Stars we may draw this strong Reason for the assertion of our Position for it sheweth and verifieth that they are of an earthly nature and that their light is borrowed the Moon appears black when the Earth hinders it to receive light from the Sun and divers Philosophers have believed that all the Stars do borrow their light of the Sun they are then obscure and thick of their own nature and consequently earthy and may have