to accommodate Himself to the understanding of the multitude, ever alters His creations, or whether nature, which is God’s handmaid, and is not changeable at man’s desire, has not always observed, and does not still maintain, her usual course in respect to motion, form, and relative positions of the various parts of the universe—I am certain that he would answer, the moon has always been spherical, although for a long period the people thought she was flat; he would say, in fine, that nothing ever changes in nature to accommodate itself to the comprehension or notions of men. But if it be so, why, in our search for knowledge of the various parts of the universe, should we begin rather with the words than with the works of God? Is the work less noble or less excellent than the word? If Fromond, or any one else, had settled that the opinion that the earth moves is a heresy, and if afterwards, demonstration, observation, and necessary concatenation should prove that it does move, into what embarrassment he would have brought himself and the holy Church. But if, on the contrary, the works are indisputably proved to vary from the literal meaning of the words, and we give the Scriptures the second place, no detriment to Scripture results from this. Since, in order to accommodate themselves they often ascribe, even to God Himself, entirely false conditions, why should we suppo
