Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that there 

 are crops and the trees on the other side of the earth that hang 

 downward, and that men have their feet higher than their heads ? 

 If you ask them how they defend these monstrosities ? how things 

 do not fall away from the earth on that side ? they reply that the 

 nature of things is such, that heavy bodies tend toward the centre 

 like the spokes of a wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, 

 fire, tend from the centre to the heavens on all sides. Now I am 

 really at a loss what to say of those who, when they have once 

 gone wrong steadily persevere in their folly, and defend one absurd 

 opinion by another. 



LACTANTIUS (fourth century, A.D.), On the Heretical Doctrine 

 of the Globular Form of the Earth. Quoted by Draper, 

 History of Intellectual Development. 



