of a new World.
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reason of the earthly vapours that are exhaled unto it. You see these ancients thought the Heavens to be so farre from this imagined incorruptibility, that rather like the weakest bodies they stood in need of some continuall nourishment without which they could not subsist.
But Aristotle and his followers were so farre from this,[1] that they thought those glorious bodies could not containe within them any such principles, as might make them lyable to the least change or corruption, and their chiefe reason was, because we could not in so long a space discerne any alteration amongst them; but unto this I answer.
1. Supposing we could not, yet would it not hence follow[2] that there were none, as hee himselfe in effect doth confesse in another place; for speaking concerning our knowledge of the Heavens, hee sayes ’tis very imperfect and
E
difficult,
