The Sleepwalkers (21 page)

Thus
Aristarchus
of
Samos
had
carried
the
development
which
started
with
Pythagoras
and
was
continued
by
Philolaus
and
Herakleides,
to
its
logical
conclusion:
the
sun-centred
universe.
But
here
the
development
comes
to
an
abrupt
end.
Aristarchus
had
no
disciples
and
found
no
followers.
¹²
For
nearly
two
millennia
the
heliocentric
system
was
forgotten
–
or,
shall
one
say,
repressed
from
consciousness?
–
until
an
obscure
Canon
in
Varmia,
a
remote
outpost
in
Christendom,
picked
up
the
thread
where
the
Samian
had
left
off.

This
paradox
would
be
easier
to
understand
if
Aristarchus
had
been
a
crank,
or
a
dilettante
whose
ideas
were
not
taken
seriously.
But
his
treatise
On
the
Sizes
and
Distances
of
the
Sun
and
Moon
became
a
classic
of
antiquity,
and
shows
him
as
one
of
the
foremost
astronomers
of
his
time;
his
fame
was
so
great
that
nearly
three
centuries
later
Vitruvius,
the
Roman
architect,
starts
his
list
of
universal
geniuses
of
the
past
with:
"Men
of
this
type
are
rare,
men
such
as
were
in
times
past
Aristarchus
of
Samos..."
¹³

In
spite
of
all
this,
his
correct
hypothesis
was
rejected
in
favour
of
a
monstrous
system
of
astronomy,
which
strikes
us
today
as
an
affront
to
human
intelligence,
and
which
reigned
supreme
for
fifteen
hundred
years.
The
reasons
for
this
benightedness
will
emerge
only
gradually,
for
we
are
faced
here
with
one
of
the
most
astonishing
examples
of
the
devious,
nay
crooked
ways
of
the
"Progress
of
Science"
–
which
is
one
of
the
main
topics
of
this
book.

IV THE
FAILURE
OF
NERVE

1.
Plato and Aristotle

BY
the
end
of
the
third
century
B.C.,
the
heroic
period
of
Greek
science
was
over.
From
Plato
and
Aristotle
onward,
natural
science
begins
to
fall
into
disrepute
and
decay,
and
the
achievements
of
the
Greeks
are
only
rediscovered
a
millennium
and
a
half
later.
The
Promethean
venture
which
had
started
around
600
B.C.,
had
within
three
centuries
spent
its
elan;
it
was
followed
by
a
period
of
hibernation,
which
lasted
five
times
as
long.

From
Aristarchus
there
is,
logically,
only
one
step
to
Copernicus;
from
Hippocrates,
only
a
step
to
Paracelsus;
from
Archimedes,
only
a
step
to
Galileo.
And
yet
the
continuity
was
broken
for
a
time-span
nearly
as
long
as
that
from
the
beginning
of
the
Christian
era
to
our
day.
Looking
back
at
the
road
along
which
human
science
travelled,
one
has
the
image
of
a
destroyed
bridge
with
rafters
jutting
out
from
both
sides;
and
in
between,
nothing.

We
know
how
this
happened;
if
we
knew
exactly
why
it
happened,
we
would
probably
have
the
remedy
to
the
ills
of
our
own
time.
For
the
breakdown
of
civilization
during
the
Dark
Ages
is
in
some
respects
the
reverse
of
the
breakdown
that
started,
though
less
dramatically,
in
the
Age
of
Enlightenment.
The
former
can
be
broadly
described
as
a
withdrawal
from
the
material
world,
contempt
for
knowledge,
science
and
technology;
rejec-
tion
of
the
body
and
its
pleasures
in
favour
of
the
life
of
the
spirit.
It
reads
like
a
mirror-writing
to
the
tenets
of
the
age
of
scientific
materialism
which
begins
with
Galileo
and
ends
with
the
totalitarian
state
and
the
hydrogen
bomb.
They
have
only
one
factor
in
common:
the
divorce
of
reason
from
belief.

On
the
watershed
that
separates
the
heroic
age
of
science
from
the
age
of
its
decline,
stand
the
twin
peaks,
Plato
and
Aristotle.
Two
quotations
may
illustrate
the
contrast
in
philosophical
climate
on
the
two
sides
of
the
watershed.
The
first
is
a
passage
from
a
writer
belonging
to
the
Hippocratic
school,
and
dates
presumably
from
the
fourth
century
B.C."It
seems
to
me,"
he
says,
dealing
with
that
mysterious
affliction,
epilepsy,
"that
the
disease
is
no
more
'divine'
than
any
other.
It
has
a
natural
cause,
just
as
other
diseases
have.
Men
think
it
divine
merely
because
they
do
not
understand
it.
But
if
they
called
everything
divine
which
they
do
not
understand,
why,
there
would
be
no
end
of
divine
things!"
¹
The
second
quotation
is
from
Plato's
Republic
and
sums
up
his
attitude
to
astronomy.
The
stars,
he
explains,
however
beautiful,
are
merely
part
of
the
visible
world
which
is
but
a
dim
and
distorted
shadow
or
copy
of
the
real
world
of
ideas;
the
endeavour
to
determine
exactly
the
motions
of
these
imperfect
bodies
is
therefore
absurd.
Instead:
"let
us
concentrate
on
(abstract)
problems,
said
I,
in
astronomy
as
in
geometry,
and
dismiss
the
heavenly
bodies,
if
we
intend
truly
to
apprehend
astronomy."
²