HOW THE EARTH WAS REGARDED. 



543 



of knowledge and the intellectual processes to which they are habitu- 

 ated. They reason as they can on such materials as they have. If 

 they have not learned to observe, they come to conclusions without 

 observations. If they do not know that there are such things as laws 

 of Nature, their inquiries are not directed to find them. If they 



Pig. 1. The Eakth floating. 



think that the mind is the measure of Nature, they will search in 

 their own reflections for the explanations of Nature; and when they 

 have got out plausible results, or which agree with logic, they will im- 

 pose their conclusions upon Nature as if they represented the truth. 

 The human mind is essentially active and will make theories; and the 



Fig. 2. The Earth with Roots. 



less its knowledge the feebler are the restraints of reason and the 

 bolder the spirit of speculation. We must therefore expect that, in 

 regard to the knowledge of the earth Avhen nothing was actually 

 known about it in early times, there must have been an enormous 

 amount of crude conjecture, futile reasoning, and absurd fancy, or 

 rather much that so appears to us now, although it may have been 

 put forth at first as sober and honest belief. 



Aristotle, who lived in the fourth century B. c, and studied Na- 



