geography (24 A. D.); a libary of universal history, by Diedorus Siculus (d. 20 B. C.). One of the earliest writers on botany, Theophrates (372 B. C.), together with fragments of geography, geometry and astronomy by Eratosthenes (275 B. C.), divide scholastic honors with Euclid (300's B. C.) and with the physical philosopher, Archimedes (207 B. C.). Euclid was probably the founder of the mathematical school at Alexandria. When Ptolemy asked him if there were not an easier way of learning geometry, Euclid made the celebrated answer, "There is no royal road to geometry." Euclid's "Elements," in thirteen books, still survive and in part is used in modern schools, as a textbook of elementary geometry. Euclid's work, translated into many languages, is probably better known than any other elementary mathematical writing. The first printed edition, from Arabic in 1482, is still in use, as a text-book in Great Britain. Euclid also wrote "Data, a collection of 100 propositions in geometry, a book praised by Newton. CHAPTER XVI DEVELOPMENT OF GEOGRAPHY Is the earth round or flat? Hecataeus Father The question of the shape of the earth does not concern us today for we know that well enough; but our ancestors of Greece believed that all manner of land and sea monsters were eager to devour human victims; and the simple fact of sunrise, night and day, tides, volcanoes, and a world of other natural conditions filled Greeks with wonder, fear, terror, as the case might be. We have now arrived at the part of our book on the rise of the Common Man when we must go back to the time that even the wisest men believed the world to be flat; we must reflect sympathetically on the puzzling and childish mental speculations of our ancestors; and with gratitude we summon pioneers of social evolution who by their lifelabors as scholars, or by their audacity in venturing on perilous voyages, as sailormen, little by little broadened the general practical knowledge of their time; and in the end were questioning whether our earth might not possibly be round, instead of square or flat? But the final experimental solution of that mighty problem was to be reserved for bold navigators 2900 years after Pythagorean philosophers (500's B. C.) had passed into eternal silence. It is true, a very few of the wisest men of Antiquity knew that our earth is round and not flat or square; but the Greek population lived and died in dense ignorance of the explanation of commonest facts of the natural world, such as a twelve year boy of today reads on the first page of his geography. Aristotle (d. 322 B. C.) wisest man of Antiquity knew the earth is round and made ingenious arguments to which we shall refer, presently. As for that, Anaximander (d. 546 B. C.) imagined our earth as swinging in the universe, detached on all sides from the vault of heavens; he did not teach that the earth is round, but said it is shaped like the section of a cylinder. Thales (600's B. C.), preaching that water is the universal element, seems to have come to the conclusion that the earth is a sphere. In the Homeric poems (900 B. C.) earth is figured as a disc floating in the skies, or as a circular plane, but this theory was vigorously disputed by other wise men. The general belief was that the earth floats on the water, and that whenever the earth moved earthquakes result from the strain. Pythagorean philosophers (500 B. C.) held as a certainty that our earth is a globe. However, there were no proofs according to modern standards. Ancients arrived at a tentative idea that the earth must be round because a circle was conceived as the "most perfect form," and hence the earth as supreme perfection is necessarily round-a curious blending of fact and fancy, based on vivid imagination. This view was adopted by Hecataeus (d. 476 B. C.), the famous Greek known as Father of Geography. Aristotle, who wrote and thought in universal terms, early made a two-fold proof of the rotundity of our earth. His first test is based on what we would call today a rude type of the law of gravitation, his second has to do with eclipses. As to gravitation, we must not carry scholastic honors too far. Aristotle's idea was that heavy bodies fall to the center, lighter ones to the surface, a conjecture offered to explain why men do not fall off the earth, if as some say, the earth is round. Aristotle finally concluded that the real reason men do not fall off the earth is because mortals "are too light." If, he argued, heavy bodies go to the center, in physical displacements, all nature "tends" to the form of a sphere, or at least a circle. Aristotle's argument about eclipses is that the shadow of the earth on the moon shows earth's outline to be round. This was certainly a marvelous conclusion for any man of that remote day to reach, considering that all he had to go by was his reason and his eyesight. Aristotle (de Coelo, lib. II. cap XIV) then adds: "Wherefore, we may judge that those persons who connect the region in the neighborhood of the Pillars of Hercules with that toward India, and who assert that in this way the sea is one, do not assert things very improbable." Continuing his argument on the alleged rotundity of the earth, Aristotle calls attention to the fact that elephants inhabiting each extreme end of the earth are of identical species-another proof to his mind that this circumstance was a consequence of the extremes. He also observes that when we go north or south the horizon changes; the stars of Egypt are not seen in the countries to the north, he tells us. But Aristotle, indeed all the Ancients, thought the earth much smaller than it really is. Aristotle's idea was that the circumference is 400,000 statia, and while the exact unit of that measure is not known, his figures, in round terms, would be somewhat under 700 miles, or 35 times short of what we now know is our earth's actual circumference, on the equator. The ancient belief in the smallness of our earth continued till the 1500's. Columbus, sailing westward, had figured on reaching Cathay in a few days. sea. Archimedes (250 B. C.) accepting the theory that the earth is round, goes on talking of the sphericity of the A curious fact, however, is that the familiar sight of the sail before the hull of the vessel is visible (hulldown) seems never to have been noted by the Ancients of this period "the first beam glittering on the sail, That brings our friends up from the under world."' It is not till the time of Strabo (d. 24 A. D.), that we read, "It is evident that when persons on ship are unable to see at a distance lights which are on a level with the eye, the cause of this is the curvature of the sea; for if those lights are raised to a higher level, they become visible, even though the distance be increased. Again, when men are approaching the land from the sea. objects which at first low attain a greater elevation." Here we must make a condition; knowledge and the spread of knowledge are two distinct facts. Aristotle knew that our earth is round, but the Common Man working in the ditch, just outside Aristotle's library did not know it; nor was even the laborer's son's grandson, nor yet that grandson's grandchild to know that very simple fact, of which the master wrote learnedly. For many centuries to come, the Common Man continued to believe that our earth is flat; hence if you walked too far in one direction, you would fall into an abyss and perish miserably. In the 300's A. D. the learned Lactantius asks derisively, "How is it possible for men to stand with their heads downward on the 'other' side of the earth?" And he soberly concludes, "It is impossible to save a fool from his folly." In the 400's A. D. Augustine argued, "It is impossible; there is no other side to the earth, because it is not mentioned in the Bible." In the 500's, the scholar Indicopleustes describes the earth as a flat floor held up by four posts; the sun goes behind a mountain at night and that makes the darkness. In the 700's, Virgil of Salzburg wrote in favor of the antipodes, but Boniface, Archbishop of Metz denounced the bishop's reasoning as blasphemous. "There are no antipodes, for if such were the case, the inhabitants there would be out of the reach of salvation." Boniface called on Pope Zachary to censure impious bishop of Salzburg. Notable part played by fishermen, sailors We would fail greatly in our quest for facts helping along the rise of the Common Man did we not emphasize, in passing, the very early practice of Greece in sending out colonies and establishing trading posts, more especially along the Euxius (Black) Sea, and the northern side of the Mediterranean. Miletus, Sinope, Tarentum, Tyras, Olbia, and many others, go back as far as 770 B. C. (Sinope) and tell us much of seafaring Greeks, as well too |