Wilkins, John, A discovery of a new world : or a discourse tending to prove, that 'tis probable there may be another Habitable World in the Moon ; with a discourse concerning the Probability of a Passage thither; unto which is added, a discourse concerning a New Planet, tending to prove, that 'tis probable our earth is one of the Planets

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3220That the Moon may be a World.
4. A Fourth Argument there is urged by
Aquinas;
if there be more Worlds than one,
then they muſt either be of the ſame, or of a
divers Nature;
but they are not of the ſame
kind;
for this were needleſs, and would argue
11Ibid. an Improvidence, ſince one could have no
more perfection than the other;
not of divers
kinds, for then one of them would not be cal-
led the World or Univerſe, ſince it did not
contain univerſal perfection.
I have cited this
Argument, becauſe it is ſo much ſtood upon
by Julius Gæſar la Galla, one that has purpoſe-
ly writ a Treatiſe againſt this Opinion which
22DePhanom.
in orbe Lu-
na.
I now deliver;
but the Dilemma is ſo blunt,
that it cannot cut on either ſide;
and the Con-
ſequences ſo weak, that I dare truſt them
without an Anſwer.
And (by the way) you
may ſee this later Author in that place, where
he@ endeavours to prove a neceſſity of one
World, doth leave the chief matter in Hand,
and take much needleſs pains to diſpute againſt
Democritus, who thought, that the World
was made by the caſual concourſe of Atoms in
a great Vacuum.
It ſhould ſeem, that either
his cauſe, or his Skill was weak, or elſe he
would have ventur'd upon a ſtronger Adver-
ſary.
Theſe Arguments which I have ſet
down, are the chiefeſt which I have met with
againſt this Subject;
yet the beſt of theſe hath
not force enough to endanger the Truth that
I have deliver'd.
Unto the two firſt, it may be anſwer'd, that
the Negative Authority of Scripture is not
prevalent in thoſe things which are not the
Fundamentals of Religion.

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