And can you blame me, cleanthes, if I here imitate the prudent reserve of simonides, who, according to the noted story, being asked by HIERO, What God was? desired a day to think of it, and then two days more; and after that manner continually prolonged the term, without ever bringing in his definition or description?  Could you even blame me, if I had answered at first, that I did not know, and was sensible that this subject lay vastly beyond the reach of my faculties?  You might cry out sceptic and railler, as much as you pleased:  but having found, in so many other subjects much more familiar, the imperfections and even contradictions of human reason, I never should expect any success from its feeble conjectures, in a subject so sublime, and so remote from the sphere of our observation.  When two species of objects have always been observed to be conjoined together, I can infer, by custom, the existence of one wherever I see the existence of the other; and this I call an argument from experience.  But how this argument can have place, where the objects, as in the present case, are single, individual, without parallel, or specific resemblance, may be difficult to explain.  And will any man tell me with a serious countenance, that an orderly universe must arise from some thought and art like the human, because we have experience of it?  To ascertain this reasoning, it were requisite that we had experience of the origin of worlds; and it is not sufficient, surely, that we have seen ships and cities arise from human art and contrivance...

Philo was proceeding in this vehement manner, somewhat between jest and earnest, as it appeared to me, when he observed some signs of impatience in cleanthes, and then immediately stopped short.  What I had to suggest, said cleanthes, is only that you would not abuse terms, or make use of popular expressions to subvert philosophical reasonings.  You know, that the vulgar often distinguish reason from experience, even where the question relates only to matter of fact and existence; though it is found, where that reason is properly analysed, that it is nothing but a species of experience.  To prove by experience the origin of the universe from mind, is not more contrary to common speech, than to prove the motion of the earth from the same principle.  And a caviller might raise all the same objections to the Copernican system, which you have urged against my reasonings.  Have you other earths, might he say, which you have seen to move?  Have...

Yes! cried Philo, interrupting him, we have other earths.  Is not the moon another earth, which we see to turn round its centre?  Is not Venus another earth, where we observe the same phenomenon?  Are not the revolutions of the sun also a confirmation, from analogy, of the same theory?  All the planets, are they not earths, which revolve about the sun?  Are not the satellites moons, which move round Jupiter and Saturn, and along with these primary planets round the sun?  These analogies and resemblances, with others which I have not mentioned, are the sole proofs of the Copernican system; and to you it belongs to consider, whether you have any analogies of the same kind to support your theory.