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Updated: May 28, 2025
"Surely," I said, "you do not think that the earth is flat, and that we live on the upper side, and you on the lower?" But that was precisely what they did think, in their modesty, and, as it seemed a hopeless task to demonstrate to them the sphericity of the globe, I left them in that flattering delusion.
In point of fact, his actual astronomical attainments would appear to have been meagre enough. There is nothing to show that he gained an inkling of the true character of the solar system. He did not even recognize the sphericity of the earth, but held, still following the Oriental authorities, that the world is a flat disk.
How intricate is the calculation of the divine mind, which causes the water of every ocean, sea, lake, pond, and vessel, when at rest, to correspond with the exact sphericity of the earth. In the face of innumerable and difficult calculations, proofs of the intense activity of the divine mind, who can be so reckless as to say that God is absent or inactive?
True, she could orientate herself as to the four cardinal points on the street, in the garden, and in the room; hundreds of times better than Lichonin the ancient peasant instinct in her asserted itself but she stubbornly denied the sphericity of the earth and did not recognize the horizon; and when she was told that the terrestrial globe moves in space, she only snorted from laughter.
His proposition that the universe is spherical is, however, not based on observation, but on considerations of the perfection of the spherical form, the general tendency of bodies a drop of water, for example to assume this form, and the sphericity of the sun and moon.
There is, indeed, reason to suppose that the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth appealed to Pythagoras chiefly because it accorded with his conception that the sphere is the most perfect solid, just as the circle is the most perfect plane surface.
The sphericity of the Globe being established, this reasoning was correct, for going always westward, the traveller must necessarily at last reach the east, and as to the route across the ocean, it would certainly be open. Who could, indeed, have suspected the existence of an obstacle 9750 miles in length, lying between Europe and Asia, and called America?
Invalid because Earth and Water are spheres with the same center. Reason 2. Invalid because of the external influence of Universal Nature, counteracting the internal influence of Particular Nature. Reason 3. Invalid because it is sphericity of the sea and not the lowness of the land which interferes with one's view at sea. Reason 4.
Could we know the whole truth, it would perhaps appear that the idea of the sphericity of the earth was originated long before the time of the Greek philosophers. But it must be admitted that there is no record of any sort to give tangible support to such an assumption. So far as we can ascertain, no Egyptian or Babylonian astronomer ever grasped the wonderful conception that the earth is round.
But this, like too many interpretations of ancient thought, appears to read into the fragments ideas which the words themselves do not warrant. There seems no reason to doubt, however, that Parmenides actually held the doctrine of the earth's sphericity.
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