Page:Dante and the early astronomers (1913).djvu/288

246 We have already quoted from Ristoro's preface, showing the high opinion he held of astronomy. But it is disappointing to find that the greatest part of his book is devoted to the "cagioni," that is, to purely fanciful "reasons," for all the facts and fallacies concerning nature which he has here brought together.

He gravely argues about the constellation-figures as if they were real pictures of animals and things pricked out by nature in stars on the vault of heaven, and not a human convention. He notes their paucity in the southern hemisphere, and that nearly all have their heads towards the north, and from this he draws the conclusion that the northern part of the sky is the nobler, for we can see it is the upper side, just as we know the top side of a book by the position of its letters.

It is for this reason, he thinks, that only the northern hemisphere of the earth contains land and is inhabited. Some, especially the great Averroes, had indeed held that there is inhabited land south of the equator, because the sun goes there. But this is because his movements of recession and approach are necessary to produce the seasons, and hence the growth of plant life, in the north. The constellations are upside down for the south, so they can have no effect there, there- fore, there are no animals there (since every race of animals is under the protection of a constellation); therefore no plants, since they exist for animals, and therefore, Ristoro concludes his chain of argument triumphantly, there are no men, and no lands, for land without life would be useless.

Ristoro reproduces Alfraganus' description of the