"Epicyclical" Quotes from Famous Books
... does the sun himself upon a vaster arena and before a greater spectator, like another Briareus; holding out his seventeen planets, and nobody knows how many comets, in his hundred hands. The moons, of those solar planets which have them, represent the epi-epicyclical orbits of the Ptolemaic theory. It is curious, and also touching, to notice how often the errors of man are thus the shadows of truth. Were it not for the preceding shadows, indeed, the substance would never arrive; and therefore the Ptolemaics of the world are second, in value and in merit, only ... — Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various |