The book did good service in France, and was translated in Germany a few years later.( 116) (116) For Blaise de Vigenere, see his Traite des Cometes, Paris, 1578.
For Dudith, see his De Cometarum Dignificatione, Basle, 1579, to which the letter of Erastus is appended.

Bekker's views may be found in his Onderzoek van de Betekening der Cometen, Leeuwarden, 1683.

For Lubienitsky's, see his Theatrum Cometicum, Amsterdam, 1667, in part ii: Historia Cometarum, preface "to the reader." For Petit, see his Dissertation sur la Nature des Cometes, Paris, 1665 (German translation, Dresden and Zittau, 1681).
All these were denounced as infidels and heretics, yet none the less did they set men at thinking, and prepare the way for a far greater genius; for toward the end of the same century the philosophic attack was taken up by Pierre Bayle, and in the whole series of philosophic champions he is chief.

While professor at the University of Sedan he had observed the alarm caused by the comet of 1680, and he now brought all his reasoning powers to bear upon it.

Thoughts deep and witty he poured out in volume after volume.