Therefore, having obtained the opportunity from these sources, I too began to consider the mobility of the earth.

For what could be more beautiful than the heavens which contain all beautiful things.

At rest, however, in the middle of everything is the sun.

The Universe, wrought for us by a supremely good and orderly Creator.

The strongest affection and utmost zeal should, I think, promote the studies concerned with the most beautiful objects, most deserving to be known.

Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.

Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it were, the general scheme of the universe.