EARLIEST PREDECESSORS OF COPERNICUS 327 



system identical with that which we call Copernican. Moreover, if 

 we may trust to a somewhat obscure statement in Simplicius, there 

 lived in the time of Alexander the Great an individual whose name 

 we know not, but who actually did effect a combination of these ideas, 

 and who is therefore worthily entitled to rank as a predecessor of Coper- 

 nicus. Whether the heliocentric conception was ever presented to Aris- 

 tarchus in concrete form, or was independently excogitated by him, we 

 are without information; but it is impossible that his mind should not 

 have received some fertile stimulus from the ideas already extant con- 

 cerning the earth's revolution and rotation. Indeed, the way had 

 been fairly prepared for a realization of the Copernican system; and 

 as a matter of fact it was easier to arrive at this conception in the 

 time of Aristarchus than subsequently, when the scheme of planetary 

 movements had become hopelessly obscured through the invention, by 

 Apollonius of Perga, of eccentrics and epicycles. The transition from 

 Philolaus to Aristarchus is natural and easy as compared with the truly 

 Herculean feat performed by Copernicus, who had first to clear away 

 heaps of Augean refuse before the truth could again become manifest. 



A melancholy interest in the fate of Aristarchus bids one inquire 

 the reasons which prevented his theory from obtaining foothold. So 

 far as history tells, it found but a solitary champion in the person of 

 Seleuchus, 6 who flourished half a century later than Aristarchus. To 

 Archimedes, and presumably to contemporary mathematicians and 

 philosophers, the insuperable objection to this system consisted in its 

 stationing the fixed stars at an infinite distance from the earth. 

 Moreover, as witness the clamant protests against the Sage of Athens — 

 to say nothing of the witty caricatures of him in the ' Clouds ' — fol- 

 lowed in the end by his martyrdom; and as witness the charges pre- 

 ferred against Aristarchus by Cleanthes, any dislodgment of the 

 earth from its sacred position in the ' hearth of the Universe' was 

 tainted with suspicion of impiety. And when afterwards the Ptolemaic 

 mechanism was introduced, blocking with its devices the brilliant con- 

 ception of Aristarchus, fourteen centuries were required to roll by be- 

 fore this useless debris could be swept away. 



Possibly yet other circumstances conspired to hinder the accept- 

 ance of the heliocentric system, the nature of which can not now be 

 ascertained, any more than can the reasons which first carried con- 

 viction of its truth. But this much is clear, there can be a tragic his- 

 tory of ideas no less than of individuals: and in meditating on the 

 fate of the many ' struck eagles ' of the pagan world, who soared loftily 

 even where we now stumble, one is reminded of that beautiful simile 

 of Byron, which concludes in deepest pathos: 



Such is the aspect of this shore; 



"Tis Greece, hut living Greece no more! 



>Cf. Ruge, S., 'Der Chaldaer Seleukos,' Dresden, 1865. 



