Page:The Discovery of a World in the Moone, 1638.djvu/24

Rh.

"I cannot choose but laugh, (saith he) to see so many men venture to describe the earths compasse, relating those things that are without all sense, as that the Sea flowes about the World, and that the earth it selfe is round as an Orbe." But this great ignorance is not so much to be admired in him, as in those learneder men of later times, when all sciences began to flourish in the World. Such was Saint Austin who censures that relation of the Antipodes to be an incredible fable, and with him agrees the eloquent Lactantius , ''quid illi qui esse contrarios vestigits nostris Antipodes putant? num aliquid loquuntur? aut est quispiam tam ineptus, qui eredat esse homines, quorum vestigia sunt superiora quàm capita? aut ibi quæ apud nos jacent'' Rh