I tell you that if natural bodies have it from Nature to be moved by any movement, this can only be circular motion, nor is it possible that Nature has given to any of its integral bodies a propensity to be moved by straight motion. I have many confirmations of this proposition, but for the present one alone suffices, which is this. I suppose the parts of the universe to be in the best arrangement, so that none is out of its place, which is to say that Nature and God have perfectly arranged their structure. This being so, it is impossible for those parts to have it from Nature to be moved in straight, or in other than circular motion, because what moves straight changes place, and if it changes place naturally, then it was at first in a place preternatural to it, which goes against the supposition. Therefore, if the parts of the world are well ordered, straight motion is superfluous and not natural, and they can only have it when some body is forcibly removed from its natural place, to which it would then return by a straight line, for thus it appears that a part of the earth does [move] when separated from its whole. I said 'it appears to us,' because I am not against thinking that not even for such an effect does Nature make use of straight line motion. [A note on this quote is included by Stillman Drake in his Galileo at Work, His Scientific Biography, University of Chicago Press, 1981; and is as follows. Galileo adhered to this position in his Dialogue at least as to the 'integral bodies of the universe.' by which he meant stars and planets, here called 'parts of the universe.' But he did not attempt to explain the planetary motions on any mechanical basis, nor does this argument from 'best arrangement' have any bearing on inertial motion, which to Galileo was indifference to motion and rest and not a tendency to move, either circularly or straight.]

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