16 
plint's KATTJEAL HISTOET. [Book It 
especially when that is so extensive. It is madness, perfect 
madness, to go out of this world and to search for what is 
beyond it, as if one who is ignorant of his own dimensions 
could ascertain the measure of any thing else, or as if the 
human mind could see what the world itself cannot contain. 
CHAP. 2. (2.) — or THE POEM OP THE WOELD^ 
That it has the form of a perfect globe we learn from 
the name which has been uniformly given to it, as well as 
from numerous natural arguments. Eor not only does a 
figure of this kind return everywhere into itself^ and sustain 
itself, also including itself, requiring no adjustments, not 
sensible of either end or beginning in any of its parts, and is 
best fitted for that motion, with which, as will appear here- 
after, it is continually turning round ; but still more, because 
we perceive it, by the evidence of the sight, to be, in every 
part, convex and central, which could not be the case were 
it of any other figure. 
CHAP.3. (3.) — OP ITS NATUEE; WHEKCETHE IfAMEISDEEIVEI). 
The rising and the setting of the sun clearly prove, 
that this globe is carried round in the space of twenty-four 
hours, in an eternal and never-ceasing circuit, and with in- 
1 I may remark, that the astronomy of our author is, for the most 
part, derived from Aristotle ; the few points in which they differ will be 
stated in the appropriate places. 
2 This doctrine was maintained by Plato in his Timseus, p. 310, and 
adopted by Aristotle, De Coelo, Hb. ii. cap. 14, and by Cicero, De Nat. 
Deor, ii. 47. The spherical form of the world, ovpavbs^ and its circular 
motion are insisted upon by Ptolemy, in the commencement of his astro- 
nomical treatise MeyaXr/ ^vvra^LS, Magna Constructio, frequently re- 
ferred to by its Arabic title Almagestum, cap. 2. He is supposed to have 
made his observations at Alexandria, between the years 125 and 140 a.d. 
His great astronomical work was translated into Arabic in the year 827 ; 
the original G-reek text was first printed in 1538 by Grrynseus, with a 
commentary by Theon. Greorge of Trebisond pubhshed a Latin version 
of it in 1541, and a second was pubhshed by Camerarius in 1551, along 
with Ptolemy's other works. John Muller, usually called Eegiomontanus, 
and Purback pubhshed an abridgement of the Almagest in 1541. For an 
account of Ptolemy I may refer to the article in the Biog. Univ; xxxv. 
263 et seq., by Delambre, also to Hutton's Math. Diet., in loco, and to 
the high character of him by Whewell, Hist, of the Inductive Sciences, 
p. 214. 
