A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



was drawn. The point is of no great significance, 

 however, except as showing that a correct method of 

 determining the problems of latitude had thus early 

 been suggested. That faulty observations and faulty 

 application of the correct principle should have been 

 made is not surprising. Neither need we concern 

 ourselves with the details as to the geographical dis- 

 tances, which Strabo found so worthy of criticism and 

 controversy. But in leaving the great geographer 

 we may emphasize his point of view and that of his 

 contemporaries by quoting three fundamental prin- 

 ciples which he reiterates as being among the "facts 

 established by natural philosophers." He tells us 

 that " (i) The earth and heavens are spheroidal. (2) 

 The tendency of all bodies having weight is towards a 

 centre. (3) Further, the earth being spheroidal and 

 having the same centre as the heavens, is motionless, as 

 well as the axis that passes through both it and the 

 heavens. The heavens turn round both the earth and 

 its axis, from east to west. The fixed stars turn round 

 with it at the same rate as the whole. These fixed 

 stars follow in their course parallel circles, the principal 

 of which are the equator, two tropics, and the arctic 

 circles; while the planets, the sun, and the moon de- 

 scribe certain circles comprehended within the zo- 

 diac." 4 



Here, then, is a curious mingling of truth and error. 

 The Pythagorean doctrine that the earth is round had 

 become a commonplace, but it would appear that the 

 theory of Aristarchus, according to which the earth 

 is in motion, has been almost absolutely forgotten. 

 Strabo does not so much as refer to it ; neither, as we 



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