Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/50

 16 plint's NATTJEAL HISTOET. [Book II. especially wlien that is so extensive. It is madness, perfect madness, to go out of this world and to search for what is beyond it, as if one who is ignorant of his own dimensions could ascertain the measure of any thing else, or as if the human mind could see what the world itself cannot contain. CHAP. 2. (2.) — or THE POEM OF THE WOELD^ That it has the form of a perfect globe we learn from the name which has been uniformly given to it, as well as from numerous natural arguments. Por not only does a figure of this kind return everywhere into itself^ and sustain itself, also including itself, requiring no adjustments, not sensible of either end or beginning in any of its parts, and is best fitted for that motion, with which, as will appear here- after, it is continually turning round ; but still more, because we perceive' it, by the evidence of the sight, to be, in every part, convex and central, which could not be the case were it of any other figure. CHAP. 3. (3.) — or ITS NATIIEE; WHEI^^CETHE ITAMEISDEEIYED. The rising and the setting of the sun clearly prove, that this globe is carried round in the space of twenty-four hours, in an eternal and never-ceasing circuit, and with in- ^ I may remark, that the astronomy of our author is, for the most part, derived from Aristotle ; the few points ia which they differ will be stated in the appropriate places. 2 Tliis doctrine was maintained by Plato in his Timseus, p. 310, and adopted by Aristotle, De Coelo, hb. ii. cap. 14, and by Cicero, De Nat. Deor- ii. 47. The spherical form of the world, ovpavbs, and its circular motion are insisted upon by Ptolemy, in the commencement of his astro- nomical treatise MeyaXr] ^vvra^is. Magna Constructio, frequently re- ferred to by its Arabic title Almagestum, cap. 2. He is supposed to have made his observations at Alexandria, between the years 125 and 140 A.D. His great astronomical work was translated into Arabic in the year 827 ; the original Greek text was first printed in 1538 by Grrynseus, with a commentary by Theon. George of Trebisond pubUshed a Latin version of it in 1541, and a second was pubhshed by Camerarius in 1551, along with Ptolemy's other works. John Muller, usually called Ecgiomontanus, and Purback pubUshed an abridgement of the Almagest in 1541. For an account of Ptolemy I may refer to the article in the Biog. Univ. xxxv. 263 ei seq., by Delambre, also to Hutton's Math. Diet., in loco, and to the high character of him by Whewell, Hist, of the Inductive Sciences,, p. 214.