Concerning the Face which Appears in the Orb Of the Moon (11)

After all, in what sense is earth situated in the middle and in the middle of what? The sum of things is infinite; and the infinite, having neither beginning nor limit, cannot properly have a middle, for the middle is a kind of limit too but infinity is a negation of limits. He who asserts that the earth is in the middle not of the sum of things but of the cosmos is naive if he supposes that the cosmos itself is not also involved in the very same difficulties.[*] In fact, in the sum of things no middle has been left for the cosmos either, but it is without hearth and habitation,[*] moving in infinite void to nothing of its own; [or], if it has come to rest because it has found some other reason for abiding, not because of the nature of its location,[*] similar inferences are permissible in the cases of both earth and moon, that the former is stationary

here and the latter is in motion there by reason of a different soul or nature rather [than] a difference [of location]. Besides this, consider whether they[*] have not overlooked an important point. If anything in any way at all off the centre of the earth is up, no part of the cosmos is down; but it turns out that the earth and the things on the earth and absolutely all body surrounding or enclosing the centre are up and only one thing is down, that incorporeal point[*] which must be in opposition to the entire nature of the cosmos, if in fact down and up are natural opposites.[*] This, moreover, does not exhaust the absurdity. The cause of the descent of heavy objects and of their motion to this region is also abolished, for there is no body that is down towards which they are in motion and it is neither likely nor in accordance with the intention of these men that the incorporeal should have so much influence as to attract all these objects and keep them together around itself.[*] On the contrary, it proves to be entirely unreasonable and inconsistent with the facts for the whole cosmos to be up and nothing but an incorporeal and unextended limit to be down; but that statement of ours is reasonable, that ample space and broad has been divided between up and down.