Those things which I am saying now may be obscure, yet they will be made clearer in their proper place.

Pouring forth its seas everywhere, then, the ocean envelops the earth and fills its deeper chasms.

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.

Of all things visible, the highest is the heaven of the fixed stars.

So, influenced by these advisors and this hope, I have at length allowed my friends to publish the work, as they had long besought me to do.

Since, then, there is no objection to the mobility of the Earth, I think it must now be considered whether several motions are appropriate for it, so that it can be regarded as one of the wandering stars. For the fact that it is not the centre of all revolutions is made clear by the apparent irregular motion of the wandering stars, and their variable distances from the Earth, which cannot be understood in a circle having the same centre as the Earth.

Moreover, since the sun remains stationary, whatever appears as a motion of the sun is really due rather to the motion of the earth.