150 A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



figure of the earth and the existence of antipodes. It is unnecessary 

 to enter into particulars as to his remarks about the absurdity of be- 

 lieving that there are people whose feet are above their heads, and 

 places where rain and hail and snow fall upwards, while the wonder 

 of the hanging gardens dwindles into nothing when compared with 

 the fields, seas, towns, and mountains, supposed by philosophers to 

 be hanging without support. He brushes aside the argument of 

 philosophers that heavy bodies seek the centre of the earth, as un- 

 worthy of serious notice ; and he adds that he could easily prove by 

 many arguments that it is impossible for the heavens to be lower than 

 the earth, but he refrains because he has nearly come to the end of his 

 book, and it is sufficient to have counted up some errors, from which 

 the quality of the rest may be imagined. 



It was natural that Augustine (354-430), . . . should express him- 

 self with . . . moderation, as befitted a man who had been a 

 student of Plato as well as of St. Paul in his younger days. With 

 regard to antipodes, he says that there is no historical evidence of 

 their existence, but people merely conclude that the opposite side of 

 the earth, which is suspended in the convexity of heaven, cannot be 

 devoid of inhabitants. But even if the earth is a sphere, it does not 

 follow that that part is above water, or, even if this be the case, that 

 it is inhabited ; and it is too absurd to imagine that people from our 

 parts could have navigated over the immense ocean to the other 

 side, or that people over there could have sprung from Adam. With 

 regard to the heavens, Augustine was, like his predecessors, bound 

 hand and foot by the unfortunate water above the firmament. He 

 says that those who defend the existence of this water point to 

 Saturn being the coolest planet, though we might expect it to be 

 much hotter than the sun, because it travels every day through a 

 much greater orbit ; but it is kept cool by the water above it. The 

 water may be in a state of vapor, but in any case we must not 

 doubt that it is there, for the authority of Scripture is greater than 

 the capacity of the human mind. He devotes a special chapter to 

 the figure of the heaven, but does not commit himself in any way 

 though he seems to think that the allusions in Scripture to the heaven 

 above us cannot be explained away by those who believe the world 

 to be spherical. But anyhow Augustine did not, like Lactantius, 

 treat Greek science with ignorant contempt; he appears to have 

 had a wish to yield to it whenever Scripture did not pull him the 



