Trust the Senses over Theory
Table of Contents
I have not made such long and careful observations that I can qualify as an authority. But certainly I wish to do so.
Whenever you wish to reconcile what your senses show you with the soundest teachings of Aristotle, you will have no trouble at all.
Aristotle had 2 propositions:
- Because of the great distance, celestial matters cannot be treated very definitely
- What sensible experience shows should be preferred over any argument
- This is more solid than the 1st proposition
Therefore it is better Aristotelian philosophy to say “Heaven is alterable because my senses tell me so” than to say “Heaven is inalterable because Aristotle was so persuaded by reasoning”.
We have a better basis for reasoning about celestial things than Aristotle because of the telescope.
He admitted such perceptions to be very difficult for him because of the distance from his senses, and conceded that one whose senses could better represent them would be able to philosophize about them with more certainty.
The telescope has brought the heavens 40 times closer to us than they were to Aristotle.
- We can now discern many things in them that he could not see such as sunspots, which were absolutely invisible to him.
So we can treat of the heavens and the sun more confidently than Aristotle could.
Who would there be to settle our controversies if Aristotle were to be deposed?
What other author should we follow in the schools, the academies, the universities?
What philosopher has written the whole of natural philosophy, so well arranged, without omitting a single conclusion?
Should we desert that structure under which so many travelers have recuperated?
Should we destroy that haven, that Prytaneum (Greek public hall where statesmen, heroes, and dignitaries were honored) where so many scholars have taken refuge so comfortably where they can acquire a complete knowledge of the universe by merely reading books?
Should that fort be leveled where one may abide in safety against all enemy assaults?
Simplicio, you confused and perplexed.
Aristotle has great authority universally. The other sciences base most of their value and reputation on Aristotle’s credit.
I pity him like a fine gentleman who built a magnificent palace at great trouble and expense on poor foundations. So he tries to prevent the collapse with chains, props, iron bars, buttresses, and shores.
I can prevent damage to that palace at a much smaller cost.
It is vanity to imagine that one can introduce a new philosophy by refining this or that author.
**It is necessary first to teach the reform of the human mind and to render it capable of distinguishing truth from falsehood, which only God can do. **
But where have we strayed, going from one argument to another?
We were dealing with the reply of the Anti-Tycho to the objections against the immutability of the heavens.
You brought in the phenomenon of sunspots, not mentioned by its author, as objection.
In the counter argument of the Anti-Tycho there are some things that should be criticized.
- If the 2 new stars, which that author can do no less than place in the highest regions of heaven, and which existed a long time and finally vanished, caused him no anxiety about insisting upon the inalterability of heaven simply because they were not unquestionably parts of heaven or mutations in the ancient stars, then to what purpose does he make all this fuss and bother about getting the comets away from the celestial regions at all costs?
Would it not have been enough for him to say that they are not unquestionably parts of heaven and not mutations in the ancient stars, and hence that they do not prejudice in any way either the heavens or the doctrines of Aristotle?
- I am not satisfied about his state of mind when he admits that any changes in the stars would be destructive of the celestial prerogatives of incorruptibility, etc., since the stars are celestial things.
But on the other hand, he is not perturbed if the same changes take place elsewhere in the heaven outside the stars themselves.
Does he imply that heaven is not a celestial thing?
I think that the stars were called celestial things because:
- of their being in the heavens, or
- their being made of heavenly material
Therefore, the heavens would be even more celestial than the stars.
I could not say similarly that anything was more terrestrial than earth itself, or more igneous than fire.
- He did not mention sunspots which are proven to be produced and dissolved and to be situated next to the body of the sun and to revolve with it or in relation to it
This shows that he is writing more to comfort others than from his own convictions.
He knows mathematics.
- It would be impossible for him not to be convinced by the proofs that such material is necessarily contiguous to the sun and undergoes generations and dissolutions so great that nothing of comparable size has ever occurred on earth.
If the generations and corruptions occurring on the very globe of the sun are so many, so great, and so frequent, while this can reasonably be called the noblest part of the heavens, then what argument remains that can dissuade us from believing that others take place on the other globes?
I am astonished that he calls celestial things as invariant, immutable, inalterable, etc. from a prime perfection and nobility of the natural and integral bodies of the universe.
While on the other hand, it is called a great imperfection to be alterable, generable, mutable, etc.
I consider the earth very noble and admirable precisely because of the diverse alterations, changes, generations, etc. that occur in it incessantly.
The deeper I go in considering the vanities of popular reasoning, the lighter and more foolish I find them.
What greater stupidity can be imagined than that of calling jewels, silver, and gold “precious,” and earth and soil “base”?
If soil were more scarce than jewels or gold, then all princes would spend cartloads of gold, rubies, and diamonds just to have enough earth to plant a jasmine in a little pot.
It is scarcity and plenty that make the vulgar take things to be precious or worthless.
They call a diamond very beautiful because it is like pure water, and then would not exchange one for 10 barrels of water.
Those who so greatly exalt incorruptibility, inalterability, etc. talk this way because of:
- their great desire to go on living
- their terror of death
They do not reflect that if men were immortal, they would never have come into the world.
Such men really deserve to encounter a Medusa’s head which would transmute them into statues of jasper or of diamond, and thus make them more perfect than they are.
Maybe such a metamorphosis would not be entirely to their disadvantage, for I think it would be better for them not to argue than to argue on the wrong side.