Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/245

Mobile; but those are the conception of an unsettled imagination. Wherefore we, following an evident, sensible and tested cause, do know that the earth moves on its own poles, which are apparent to us by many magnetick demonstrations. For not only on the ground of its constancy, and its sure and permanent position, is the Earth endowed with poles and verticity: for it might be directed toward other parts of the universe, toward East or West or some other region. By the wondrous wisdom then of the Builder forces, primarily animate, have been implanted in the Earth, that with determinate constancy the Earth may take its direction, and the poles have been placed truly opposite, that about them as the termini, as it were, of some axis, the motion of diurnal turning might be performed. But the constancy of the poles is regulated by the primary soul. Wherefore, for the Earth's good, the collimations of her verticities do not continually regard a definite point of the firmament and of the visible heaven. For changes of the æquinoxes take place from a certain deflection of the Earth's axis; yet in regard to that deflection, the Earth has a constancy of motion derived from her own forces. The Earth, that she may turn herself about in a diurnal revolution, leans on her poles. For since at A and B there is constant verticity, and the axis is straight; at C and D (the æquinoctial line) the parts are free, the whole forces on either side being spread out from the plane of the æquator toward the poles, in æther which is free from renitency, or else in a void; and A and B remaining constant, C revolves toward D both from innate conformity and aptitude, and for necessary good, and the avoidance of evil; but being chiefly moved forward by the diffusion of the solar orbes of virtues, and by their lights. And 'tis borne around, not upon a new and strange course, but (with thetendency