160 THE GREEK ASTRONOMY. 



ported at all ; are great triumphs both of the 

 power of discovering and the power of convincing. 

 We may readily allow this, when we recollect how 

 recently the doctrine of the antipodes, or the 

 existence of inhabitants of the earth, who stand 

 on the opposite side of it, with their feet turned 

 towards ours, was considered both monstrous and 

 heretical. 



Yet the different positions of the horizon at 

 different places, necessarily led the student of sphe- 

 rical astronomy toward this notion of the earth 

 as a round body. Anaximander 48 is said by some 

 to have held the earth to be globular, and to be 

 detached or suspended ; he is also stated to have 

 constructed a sphere, on which were shown the 

 extent of land and water. As, however, we do 

 not know the arguments upon which he maintained 

 the earth's globular form, we cannot judge of the 

 value of his opinion ; it may have been no better 

 founded than a different opinion ascribed to him 

 by Laertius, that the earth had the shape of a 

 pillar. Probably, the authors of the doctrine of 

 the globular form of the earth were led to it, as 

 we have said, by observing the different height of 

 the pole at different places. They would find that 

 the space which they passed over from north to 

 south on the earth, was proportional to the change 

 of place of the horizon in the celestial sphere ; and 

 as the horizon is, at every place, in the direction 

 48 See Brucker, Hist. Phil vol. i. p. 486. 



