NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 583 



4. The Size of the Earth. But at an early period another 

 subject in geography had stirred the minds of thinking men 

 the earth's size. Various ancient investigators had by different 

 methods reached measurements more or less near the truth ; these 

 methods were continued into the middle ages, supplemented by 

 new thought, and among the more striking results were those 

 obtained by Roger Bacon and Gerbert, afterward Pope Sylvester 

 II. They handed down to after-time the torch of knowledge, but, 

 as their reward among their contemporaries, they fell under the 

 charge of sorcery. 



Far more consonant with the theological spirit of the middle 

 ages was a solution of the problem from Scripture, and this 

 solution deserves to be given as an example of a very curious 

 theological error, chancing to result in great good. The second 

 book of Esdras, which among Protestants is placed in the Apoc- 

 rypha, was held by many of the foremost men of the ancient 

 Church as fully inspired : though Jerome looked with suspicion 

 on this book, it was regarded as prophetic by Clement of Alexan- 

 dria, Tertullian, and Ambrose, and the Church acquiesced in that 

 view. In the Eastern Church it held an especially high place, and 

 in the Western Church, before the Reformation, was generally 

 considered by the most eminent authorities to be part of the 

 sacred canon. In the sixth chapter of this book there is a sum- 

 mary of the works of creation, and in this occur the following 

 verses : 



"Upon the third day thou didst command that the waters 

 should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth; six parts 

 hast thou dried up and kept them to the intent that of these 

 some, being planted of God and tilled, might serve thee." 



" Upon the fifth day thou saidst unto the seventh part where 

 the waters were gathered, that it should bring forth living creat- 

 ures, fowls and fishes, and so it came to pass." 



These statements were reiterated in other verses, and were 

 naturally considered c ^f controlling authority. 



Among the scholars % o pondered on this as on all other 

 things likely to increase knov> ledge was Cardinal Pierre d' Ailly. 

 As we have seen, this great man, while he denied the existence of 



ander VI, see E. G. Bourne in Yale Review, May, 1892. For the Margarita Philosophiea, 

 see the editions of 1503, 1509, 1517, lib. vii, cap. 48. For the effect of Magellan's voy- 

 ages, and the reluctance to yield to proof, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xiv, 

 p. 395 ; St. Martin's Histoire de la Geographie, p. 369 ; Peschel, Geschichte des Zeitalters 

 der Entdeckungen, concluding chapters ; and for an admirable summary, Draper, Hist. Int. 

 Devel. of Europe, pp. 451^153 ; also an interesting passage in Sir Thomas Browne's Vulgar 

 and Common Errors, Book I, chap. vi. For general statement as to supplementary proof by 

 measurement of degrees and by pendulum, see Somerville, Phys. Geog., chap, i, par. 6, note ; 

 also Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii, p. 736, and v, pp. 16, 32 ; also Montucla, iv, 138. 



