388 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hail fall upward toward the earth ? . . . But if you inquire from 

 those who defend these marvelous fictions, why all things do not fall 

 into that lower part of the heaven, they reply that such is the nature 

 of things, that heavy bodies are borne toward the middle, like the 

 spokes of a wheel; while light bodies, such as clouds, smoke, and fire, 

 tend from the centre toward the heavens on all sides. Now, I am at 

 loss what to say of those who, when they have once erred, steadily 

 persevere in their folly, and defend one vain thing by another." 



Augustine seems inclined to yield a little in regard to the rotun- 

 dity of the earth, but he fights the idea that men exist on the other 

 side of the earth, saying that " Scripture speaks of no such descendants 

 of Adam," 



But this did not avail to check the idea. What may be called the 

 flank movement, as represented by Eusebius, had failed. The direct 

 battle given by Lactantius, Augustine, and others, had failed. In the 

 sixth century, therefore, the opponents of the new ideas built a great 

 fortress and retired into that. It was well built and well braced. It 

 was nothing less than a complete theory of the world, based upon the 

 literal interpretation of texts of Scripture, and its author was Cosmas 

 Indicopleustes.* 



According to Cosmas, the earth is a parallelogram, flat, and sur- 

 rounded by four great seas. At the outer edges of these seas rise 

 immense walls closing in the whole structure. These walls support 

 the vault of the heavens, whose edges are cemented to the walls ; 

 walls and vault shut in the earth and all the heavenly bodies. The 

 whole of this theologic, scientific fortress was built most carefully, and, 

 as was then thought, most scripturally. 



Starting with the expression, To dyiov kooiilkov, applied in the 

 ninth chapter of Hebrews to the tabernacle in the desei-t, he insists, 

 with other interpreters of his time, that it gives a key to the whole 

 construction of the world. The universe is, therefore, made on the 

 plan of the Jewish Tabernacle box-like and oblong. 



Coming to details, he quotes those grand words of Isaiah,'' "It is 

 he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, . . . that stretcheth out 

 the heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell 

 in," and the passage in Job,' which speaks of the " pillars of heaven." 

 He turns all that splendid and precious poetry into a prosaic state- 

 ment, and gathers therefrom, as he thinks, treasures for science. 



This vast box is then divided into two compartments, one above 

 the other. In the first of these, men live and stars move ; and it ex- 



' For Lactantius, see " Instit.," iii., 24, translation in Ante-Nicene Library; also, cita- 

 tions in Whewell, i., 196, and in St. Martin, "Histoire de la Geographic," pp. 216, 217. 

 For St. Augustine's opinion, see the " Civ. D.," xvi., 9, where this great Father of the 

 Church shows that the existence of the antipodes " milla ratione credendiim est.'''' Also, 

 citations in Buckle's " Posthumous Works," vol. ii., p. 645. 



Isaiah xl. 22. ' Job xxvi. 11. 



