The Sphere of Johannes de Sacrobosco

PREFACE.

Wherefore, it was most shameful for us to lose such an honest possession of the best things. But there are some Epicurean theologians who mock this entire type of doctrine, and not only withhold faith from predictions but also criticize the knowledge of the motions; let us allow them to be foolish along with Epicurus. For they are of such a kind that they have more need of doctors than of geometers. For it is a manifest kind of madness to disdain the knowledge of the motions, which possesses the most learned and firmest reasons, even if we entirely omit that other, divinatory part. Although neither Picus nor anyone else could persuade me that the stars have no effects on the elements and in animate bodies, and furthermore no significations in this lower nature. For experience shows that the conjunctions of burning stars scorch these bodies and bring droughts; conversely, the conjunctions of humid stars increase the humors. Then, the variously mixed lights and variously tempered qualities, like things that are very different in medicines, when tempered differently, have different effects. And therefore, I judge that Aristotle spoke correctly when he says that this lower world is governed by the higher, and that the higher things are the cause of motion in lower bodies; and he adds a reason conceived most prudently: "Since the beginning of motion is from the sky, it follows that it is the motion of the sky, and that it is the cause of motion for the rest." For these are his words, which we shall transcribe, so that young people may remember them like an oracle:
original: "ἔστι δ’ ἐξ ἀνάγκης συνεχής πως οὗτος τοῖς ἄνωθεν φοραῖς, ὥστε πᾶσαν αὐτοῦ τὴν δύναμιν κυβερνᾶσθαι ἐκεῖθεν· ὅθεν γὰρ ἡ τῆς κινήσεως ἀρχὴ πᾶσιν, ἐκείνην αἰτίαν νομιστέον πρώτην." / Translation: It is by necessity that this world is somehow continuous with the motions from above, so that all its power is governed from there; for from where the beginning of motion is for all things, that must be considered the first cause.
Just as in these bodies of ours, life, or the first motion which exists in the heart, stirs motion in the other members, so since the motion of the sky is undoubtedly the first, it excites the remaining bodies to perform their own motions.