Page:A philosophical essay on probabilities Tr. Truscott, Emory 1902.djvu/189

the moon and the highest comets. It is still perceptible in the atmosphere, especially between the tropics, on account of the great circles which the molecules of the air describe there; finally, it is almost inappreciable with the ocean; it is then nil for the earth." But this induction proves only that Saturn, and the stars which are inferior to it, have their own movements, contrary to the real or apparent movement which sweeps the whole celestial sphere from the orient to the Occident, and that these movements appear slower with the more remote stars, which is conformable to the laws of optics. Bacon ought to have been struck by the inconceivable swiftness which the stars require in order to accomplish their diurnal revolution, if the earth is immovable, and by the extreme simplicity with which its rotation explains how bodies so distant, the ones from the others, as the stars, the sun, the planets, and the moon, all seem subjected to this revolution. As to the ocean and to the atmosphere, he ought not to compare their movement with that of the stars which are detached from the earth; but since the air and the sea make part of the terrestrial globe, they ought to participate in its movement or in its repose. It is singular that Bacon, carried to great prospects by his genius, was not won over by the majestic idea which the Copernican system of the universe offers. He was able, however, to find in favor of that system, strong analogies in the discoveries of Galileo, which were continued by him. He has given for the search after truth the precept, but not the example. But by insisting, with all the force of reason and of eloquence, upon the necessity of abandoning the insignificant