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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1877That the Earth may be a Planet. than others; ſince Ariſtotle himſelf, and Pli-
ny did deny this as well as they.
I anſwer:
1. If they did, yet this do’s make more
to the preſent purpoſe:
For if ſuch great
Scholars, who were ſo eminent for their
knowledge in natural things, might yet not-
withſtanding be groſly miſtaken in ſuch
matters as are now evident and certain:
Why then we have no reaſon to depend
upon their aſſertions or Authorities, as if
they were infallible.
2. Though theſe great Naturaliſts, for
want of ſome experience were miſtaken in
that Opinion, whileſt they thought no place
was habitable but the temperate Zones;
yet
it cannot be from hence inferred, that they
denied the poſſibility of Antipodes:
Since theſe
are ſuch Inhabitants as live oppoſite unto us
in the other temperate Zone;
and ’twere an
abſurd thing to imagin that thoſe who lived
in different Zones, can be Antipodes to one a-
nother;
and argues that a Man did not un-
derſtand, or elſe had forgotten that common
diſtinction in Geography, wherein the relation
of the Worlds Inhabitants unto one another,
are reckoned up under theſe three heads;
An-
tæci, Periæci, and Antipodes.
But to let this
paſs:
’tis certain, that ſome of the Fathers did
deny the being of any ſuch, upon other more
abſurd grounds.
Now if ſuch as Chryfoſtom,
Lactantius, &
c. who were noted for great
Scholars, and ſuch too as flouriſhed in theſe
latter times, when all human Learning

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