Note 846 — Chapter IX

This is the proper statement of the Copernican argument, as it then stood; it rested on what we may call a metaphysical probability, founded upon its beauty and simplicity; for it is to be remembered that the Ptolemaic hypothesis explained all the phenomena then known. Those which are only to be solved by the supposition of the earth’s motion were discovered long afterwards. This excuses the slow reception of the new system, interfering as it did with so many prejudices, and incapable of that kind of proof which mankind generally demand.