Plato touched on astronomy, for he touches on every- LITTLE 

 thing, and fully believed that the earth was round. JOURNEYS 

 His pupil, Aristotle, taught all that Anaxagoras taught, 

 and if he had not also been exiled, but had been free to 

 study, investigate and express himself, he would have 

 come very close to the truth. Hipparchus, a hundred 

 years after Aristotle, calculated the length of the year 

 to within six minutes, discovered the precession of the 

 equinoxes and counted all the stars he could see, 

 making a map of them. 



Seventy years after Christ, Ptolemy, a Graeco-Egyp- 

 tian, but not of the royal line of Ptolemys, published 

 his great book, " The Almagest." For fourteen cen- 

 turies it was the text-book for the best astronomers. 

 It taught that the earth was the center of the universe, 

 and that the sun and the planets revolve around it. 

 There were many absurdities, however, that had to be 

 explained, and the priests practically rejected the 

 whole book as "pagan" and taught an astronomy of 

 their own, founded on the Bible. What they wanted 

 was an explanation that would be accepted by the 

 common people. This astronomy was not designed to 

 be scientific, exact, or truthful all they asked was, 

 " Is it plausible?" Expediency, to theology, has al- 

 ways been much more important than truth. 

 " Besides," said St. Basil, "what boots it concerning 

 all this conjecture about the stars, since the earth is 

 soon to come to an end, as shown by our Holy Scrip- 

 tures, and man's business is to prepare his soul for 

 eternity ? ' ' 



11 



