The Sleepwalkers (266 page)

13

Heath,
The
Copernicus
of
Antiquity
(
London,
1920),
p.
38.

Part
1 Chapter IV. THE FAILURE OF NERVE

1

Quoted
by Farrington, op. cit., p. 81.

2

The
Republic
of
Plato
,
transl.
Thomas
Taylor,
Book
VII.

3

Loc.
cit.

4

G.
B.
Grundy
article
on
"Greece",
Ency.
Brit.
,
X-78cc.

5

Bertrand
Russell,
Unpopular
Essays
(
London,
1950),
p.
16.

6

Politics
,
quoted
by
K.
R.
Popper,
The
Open
Society
and
its
Enemies
(
London,
1945),
Vol.
II,
p.
2.

7

Metaphysics
,
quoted
by
Farrington,
op.
cit.,
p.
131.

8

Timaeus
,
90,
91.

9

Spenser,
The
Faerie
Queene
.

10

Phaedo
,
quoted
by
Bertrand
Russell,
A
History
of
Western
Philosophy
(
London,
1946),
p.
159.

11

There
has
been
an
unending
controversy
about
a
single
word,
ειλομένην
or
ιλλομένην
in
a
phrase
in
Timaeus
,
40B,
which
reads,
in
Dreyer
translation:
"But
the
earth,
our
nourisher,
packed
round
the
axis
that
extends
through
the
universe,
He
formed
as
the
guardian
and
artificer
of
night
and
day,
the
first
and
most
ancient
of
the
gods
that
have
been
generated
within
the
universe"
(op.
cit.,
p.
71
f.)
Burnet
reads
instead
of
"packed":
"going
to
and
fro"
or
"backwards
and
forwards"
(
Greek
Philosophy
,
p.
348);
Professor
A.
E.
Taylor
(quoted
by
Heath,
Greek
Astronomy
,
p.
xli)
suggests
that
the
phrase
must
be
taken
as
meaning
that
the
earth
is
"sliding
up
and
down
the
axis
of
the
universe",
and
that
Plato
was
merely
quoting
a
Pythagorean
theory
(which
he
evidently
got
all
muddled
up),
without
subscribing
to
it.
Apart
from
this
nebulous
sentence,
Plato
nowhere
alludes
to
any
motion
of
the
earth.
Plutarch,
in
discussing
the
system
of
Philolaus
with
its
central
fire,
reports
that
"These
ideas
are
said
to
have
been
entertained
by
Plato
also
in
his
old
age;
for
he
too
thought
that
the
earth
was
in
a
subordinate
position,
and
that
the
centre
of
the
universe
was
occupied
by
some
nobler
body."
(
Plutarch
Life
of
Numa
,
ch.
11,
quoted
by
Dreyer,
p.
82.)
Though
it
is
possible
that
the
ageing
Plato
toyed
with
the
idea
of
the
"central
fire"
from
a
quasi-mythological
point
of
view,
he
again
nowhere
alludes
to
it
in
his
writings.

12

Timaeus,
33B-34B, quoted by Heath, op cit., p. 49 f.

13

Farrington,
op cit., p. 56.

14

For
a
concise
summing
up
of
Aristotle's
and
Plato's
different
attitudes
to
Change,
see
Popper,
op.
cit.,
Vol.
II,
pp.
4-6,
and
particularly
Note
11,
p.
271
f.

Part
I Chapter V. THE DIVORCE FROM REALITY

1

Eudoxus'
is
the
first
serious
attempt
to
put
astronomy
on
an
exact
geometrical
basis.
His
model
could
lay
no
claim
on
representing
physical
reality,
but
for
sheer
geometrical
elegance
it
is
unrivalled
in
pre-Keplerian
astronomy,
and
superior
to
Ptolemy's.
It
worked,
briefly
as
follows:
The
outermost
(S
₄
)
of
the
four
spheres
which
form
a
planet's
"nest"
reproduced
the
apparent
diurnal
rotation;
the
Axis
(A
₃
)
of
S
₃
was
perpendicular
to
the
ecliptic,
so
that
its
equator
turned
in
the
plane
of
the
ecliptic,
in
the
outer
planets'
zodiacal
period,
and
the
inner
planets
in
one
year.
The
two
innermost
spheres
served
to
account
for
the
movement
in
latitude,
and
for
the
stations
and
retrogressions.
S
2
had
its
poles
on
the
equator
of
S
3,
i.e.
on
the
zodiacal
circle;
S
2
rotated
in
the
synodic
period
of
the
planet.
S
1
rotated
in
the
same
period
but
in
the
opposite
direction;
and
A
1
was
inclined
to
A
2
at
an
angle
different
for
each
planet.
The
planet
sat
on
the
equator
of
S
1.
The
combined
rotations
of
S
1
and
S
2
made
the
planet
describe
a
lemniscate
(i.e.
an
elongated
"figure
of
eight")
lying
along
the
zodiac.
For
details
see
Dreyer,
op.
cit.,
ch.
4;
and
Duhem,
op.
cit.,
I,
pp.
111-23.