Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- PREFACE
- MEMOIR
- TREATISE
- Chapter I The occasion, excellence, and utility of the Observation
- Chapter II Account of the Observation
- Chapter III What others observed, or might have observed, of this Conjunction
- Chapter IV It is proved that the spot observed in the Sun's disc was really Venus
- Chapter V The Examination of the apparent Longitude and Latitude of Venus from the Sun
- Chapter VI The alteration of the apparent into the true situation of Venus
- Chapter VII An Inquiry into the Time and Place of the true Conjunction of Venus and the Sun
- Chapter VIII The Demonstration of the Node of Venus
- Chapter IX The beginning, middle, and end of the Transit are shewn
- Chapter X An Examination of the Calculations of Astronomers respecting the foregoing
- Chapter XI The Calculation of Copernicus
- Chapter XII The Calculation of Lansberg
- Chapter XIII The Calculation of Longomontanus
- Chapter XIV The Calculation of Kepler
- Chapter XV Correction of the Motions according to Rudolphi
- Chapter XVI On the Diameter of Venus
- Chapter XVII On the Diameters of the rest of the Planets, of the Proportion of the Celestial Spheres, and of the Parallax of the Sun
- Plate section
Chapter XI - The Calculation of Copernicus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- PREFACE
- MEMOIR
- TREATISE
- Chapter I The occasion, excellence, and utility of the Observation
- Chapter II Account of the Observation
- Chapter III What others observed, or might have observed, of this Conjunction
- Chapter IV It is proved that the spot observed in the Sun's disc was really Venus
- Chapter V The Examination of the apparent Longitude and Latitude of Venus from the Sun
- Chapter VI The alteration of the apparent into the true situation of Venus
- Chapter VII An Inquiry into the Time and Place of the true Conjunction of Venus and the Sun
- Chapter VIII The Demonstration of the Node of Venus
- Chapter IX The beginning, middle, and end of the Transit are shewn
- Chapter X An Examination of the Calculations of Astronomers respecting the foregoing
- Chapter XI The Calculation of Copernicus
- Chapter XII The Calculation of Lansberg
- Chapter XIII The Calculation of Longomontanus
- Chapter XIV The Calculation of Kepler
- Chapter XV Correction of the Motions according to Rudolphi
- Chapter XVI On the Diameter of Venus
- Chapter XVII On the Diameters of the rest of the Planets, of the Proportion of the Celestial Spheres, and of the Parallax of the Sun
- Plate section
Summary
I shall commence with the incomparable Copernicus, the successful reviver of what Gellibrand calls the “noble hypothesis of the motion of the Earth,” whom all the lovers of astronomy have hitherto followed, and will doubtless continue to do. Having long contemplated and admired a philosophy so sublime and so worthy of a Christian, I thus expressed my aversion to the puerile fictions of the pagan Ptolemy:—
Why should'st thou try, O Ptolemy, to pass
Thy narrow-bounded world for aught divine?
Why should thy poor machine presume to claim
A noble maker? Can a narrow space
Call for eternal hands? Will thy mansion
Suit great Jove? or can he from such a seat
Prepare his lightnings for the trembling earth?
Fair are the gods you frame forsooth! nor vain
Would be their fears if giant hands assailed them.
Such little world were well the infant sport
Of Jove in darker times; such toys in truth
His cradle might befit, nor would the work
In after years have e'er been perfected,
When harlot smiles restrained his riper powers.
These are your fancied gods, your paltry dreams;
And worthy them is all you raise around;
The temples that you build are amply large,
Thy heavens are suited to a Jove like thine. […]
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- Information
- Memoir of the Life and Labors of the Rev. Jeremiah HorroxTo Which is Appended a Translation of his Celebrated Discourse Upon the Transit of Venus Across the Sun, pp. 164 - 170Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1859