Page:Early Greek philosophy by John Burnet, 3rd edition, 1920.djvu/317

Rh on grammatical and lexicological grounds. We have therefore to ask what motion of translation is compatible with the statement that the earth is "at the centre," and there seems to be nothing left but a motion up and down (to speak loosely) on the axis of the universe itself. Now the only clearly attested meaning of the rare word ἴλλομαι is just that of motion to and fro, backwards and forwards. It may be added that a motion of this kind was familiar to the Pythagoreans, if we may judge from the description of the waters in the earth given by Sokrates in the Phaedo, on the authority of some unnamed cosmologist.

What was this motion intended to explain? It is impossible to be certain, but it is clear that the motions of the circles of the Same and the Other, i.e. the equator and the ecliptic, are inadequate to "save the appearances." So far as they go, all the planets should either move in the