Page:A short history of astronomy(1898).djvu/71

§§ 25, 26] to the subject in various places. He condemned any careful study of the actual celestial motions as degrading rather than elevating, and apparently regarded the subject as worthy of attention chiefly on account of its connection with geometry, and because the actual celestial motions suggested ideal motions of greater beauty and interest. This view of astronomy he contrasts with the popular conception, according to which the subject was useful chiefly for giving to the agriculturist, the navigator, and others a knowledge of times and seasons. At the end of the same dialogue he gives a short account of the celestial bodies, according to which the sun, moon, planets, and fixed stars revolve on eight concentric and closely fitting wheels or circles round an axis passing through the earth. Beginning with the body nearest to the earth, the order is Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, stars. The Sun, Mercury, and Venus are said to perform their revolutions in the same time, while the other planets move more slowly, statements which shew that Plato was at any rate aware that the motions of Venus and Mercury are different from those of the other planets. He also states that the moon shines by reflected light received from the sun.

Plato is said to have suggested to his pupils as a worthy problem the explanation of the celestial motions by means of a combination of uniform circular or spherical motions. Anything like an accurate theory of the celestial motions, agreeing with actual observation, such as Hipparchus and Ptolemy afterwards constructed with fair success, would hardly seem to be in accordance with Plato's ideas of the true astronomy, but he may well have wished to see established some simple and harmonious geometrical scheme which would not be altogether at variance with known facts.

26. Acting to some extent on this idea of Plato's, Eudoxus of Cnidus (about 409-356 B.C.) attempted to explain the most obvious peculiarities of the celestial motions by means of a combination of uniform circular motions. He may be regarded as representative of the transition from speculative