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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Timaeus by Plato: language of Spinoza, 'sub specie aeternitatis,' they were still at rest,
but appeared to move in order to teach men the periods of time. Although
absolutely in motion, they are relatively at rest; or we may conceive of
them as resting, while the space in which they are contained, or the whole
anima mundi, revolves.
The universe revolves around a centre once in twenty-four hours, but the
orbits of the fixed stars take a different direction from those of the
planets. The outer and the inner sphere cross one another and meet again
at a point opposite to that of their first contact; the first moving in a
circle from left to right along the side of a parallelogram which is
supposed to be inscribed in it, the second also moving in a circle along
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