Then Plato was of another opinion, and he wrote in a book of his, which he called Timaeus, that the Earth with the sea was indeed the centre of all, but that its whole sphere revolved round its centre, following the first movement of the Heavens, but much slower on account of its gross material, and because of the immense distance from that first moved.

These opinions are confuted in the second chapter, Of Heaven and the World, by that glorious Philosopher, to whom Nature opened her secrets most freely; and by him it is therein proved that this World, the Earth, is of itself stable and fixed to all eternity.

And his reasons, which Aristotle states in order to break those other opinions and to affirm the truth, it is not my intention here to narrate; therefore, let it be enough for those to whom I speak, to know, upon his great authority, that this Earth is fixed, and does not revolve, and that it, with the sea, is the centre of the Heavens.

These Heavens revolve round this centre continuously, even as we see; in which revolution there must of necessity be two fixed Poles, and a circle equally distant from these round which all especially revolves.

Of these two Poles, the one is visible to almost all the discovered Earth, that is, the Northern Pole; the other is hidden from almost all the discovered Earth, that is, the Southern Pole.