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SUMMARIES

OF THE LETTERS.

OF THE FIRST LETTER.

ART. I. The Occasion for Writing.

Three years ago, the Author Pierre Gassendi published two letters titled On Motion Impressed by a Moved Mover. The Reverend Father Cazré Pierre Cazré, a Jesuit mathematician and scientist of the Society of Jesus, then Rector of the College of Dijon, wrote a letter to him. In this letter, he criticized various points concerning the writings on motion. He specifically addressed the disputes regarding the attributed motion of the Earth. Consequently, the Author wrote back to him. That response is placed third in the current order of this book. It is permissible and not inappropriate to read that letter first if one chooses. The Reverend Father had objected that the Author would not have approved of Galileo’s Galileo Galilei opinion concerning the proportion by which falling heavy bodies are accelerated if he had noticed the fallacy paralogism: a piece of false or illogical reasoning committed by Galileo. The Author responded that he could not see any fallacy. He requested that the Reverend Father both reveal the error and manifest the proportion he believed to be more accurate. For that reason, the Reverend Father recently wrote and published another letter with this title, Physics