Dante and the early astronomers . zes of sun and moon, as Earth is nearer or fartherfrom them, but the Pythagoreans were quite readyto believe that all the heavenly bodies are so distantthat this journey of Earth makes no difference to theirapparent size or brightness. The planets were thoughtto be worlds like ours, and inhabited ; and it was evenguessed that plants and animals on the moon mustbe fifteen times as strong as ours, apparently becausethere the average day consists of nearly fifteen of ourdays (of twenty-four hours), and the nights are equallylong. It was the braver of the Pythagor
Dante and the early astronomers . zes of sun and moon, as Earth is nearer or fartherfrom them, but the Pythagoreans were quite readyto believe that all the heavenly bodies are so distantthat this journey of Earth makes no difference to theirapparent size or brightness. The planets were thoughtto be worlds like ours, and inhabited ; and it was evenguessed that plants and animals on the moon mustbe fifteen times as strong as ours, apparently becausethere the average day consists of nearly fifteen of ourdays (of twenty-four hours), and the nights are equallylong. It was the braver of the Pythagoreans to shake thesteady earth from her centre, and set her whirling inthe depths of space, that they realized, as no one haddone before, how large she must be; for Greece andthe surrounding lands, the Middle and the other seas,instead of making the whole of the earth, were nowunderstood to be only a portion of a great globe. Here, then, is a conception of the Universe widelydifferent from Homers. The little fiat disc has become a. Fig. 16. The System of Philolaus : night on earth. Only the side turned away from the centre is inhabited: consequently the CentralFire and Autichthou are invisible.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, booksubjectastronomy, booksubjectdantealighieri
