INDISTINCTNESS OF IDEAS. 



representation ; but in this case, the distinctness of his pictures only 

 serves to show his want of any clear conception as to what suppositions 

 would explain the phenomena. He describes the earth as an oblong 

 floor, surrounded by upright walls, and covered by a vault, below which 

 the heavenly bodies perform their revolutions, going round a certain 

 high mountain, which occupies the northern parts of the earth, and 

 makes night by intercepting the light of the sun. In Augustin 12 (who 

 flourished A. D. 400) the opinion is treated on other grounds ; and with- 

 out denying the globular form of the earth, it is asserted that there are 

 no inhabitants on the opposite side, because no such race is recorded by 

 Scripture among the descendants of Adam. 13 Considerations of the 

 same kind operated in the well-known instance of Virgil, Bishop of 

 Salzburg, in the eighth century. When he was reported to Boniface, 

 Archbishop of Mentz, as holding the existence of Antipodes, the prel- 

 ate was shocked at the assumption, as it seemed to him, of a world of 

 human beiuo-s, out of the reach of the conditions of salvation ; and 



O ' 



application was made to Pope Zachary for a censure of the holder of 

 this dangerous doctrine. It does not, however, appear that this led to 

 any severity; and the story of the deposition of Virgil from his bish- 

 opric, which is circulated by Kepler and by more modern writers, is 

 undoubtedly altogether false. The same scruples continued to prevail 

 among Christian writers to a later period ; and Tostatus' 4 notes the 

 opinion of the rotundity of the earth as an ." unsafe" doctrine, only a 

 few years before Columbus visited the other hemisphere. 



8. Intellectual Condition of the Religious Orders. It must be rec- 

 ollected, however, that though these were the views and tenets of 

 many religious writers, and though they may be taken as indications 

 of the prevalent and characteristic temper of the times of which we 

 speak, they never were universal. Such a confusion of thought affects 

 the minds of many persons, even in the most enlightened times ; and 

 in what we call the Dark Ages, though clear views on such subjects 

 might be more rare, those who gave their minds to science, enter- 

 tained the true opinion of the figure of the earth. Thus Boethius 15 (in 

 the sixth century) urges the smallness of the globe of the earth, corn- 



is Civ. D. xvi. 9. 



13 It appears, however, that scriptural arguments were found on the other 

 St. Jerome says (Comm. in Ezech. \. 6), si'rakingr of the two cherulnms with four 

 faces, seen by the prophet, and the interpretation of the vision : "Alii vcro qui 

 philosophorum stultam scquuntur sapientiam, >\\w homi.<pheria in duobus tempi' 

 cherubim, nos et antipodes, quasi supine el I'li'lentcs homines suspieantur." 



11 Montfauc. Pair. t. ii. 15 U i I 'ons. ii. pr. 7. 



