The Sleepwalkers (32 page)

In
the
fourth
century
A.D.,
when
darkness
was
finally
closing
in
on
the
world
of
antiquity,
Julian
the
Apostate
wrote
about
the
sun:
"He
leads
the
dance
of
the
stars;
his
foresight
guides
all
generation
in
nature.
Around
him,
their
King,
the
planets
dance
their
rounds;
they
revolve
around
him
in
the
perfect
harmony
of
their
distances
which
are
exactly
circumscribed,
as
the
sages
affirm,
who
contemplate
the
events
in
the
skies..."
¹¹

Lastly
Macrobius, who lived around 400 A.D., comments on the passage from
Cicero which I have just quoted:

"He
calls
the
sun
the
ruler
of
the
other
stars
because
the
sun
regulates
their
progression
and
retrogression
within
spatial
limits,
for
there
are
spatial
limits
which
confine
the
planets
in
their
advance
and
regress
relative
to
the
sun.
Thus
the
force
and
power
of
the
sun
regulates
the
course
of
the
other
stars
within
fixed
limits."
¹²

Here,
then,
is
evidence
that
to
the
very
end
of
the
antique
world,
the
teaching
of
Herakleides
and
Aristarchus
was
well
remembered;
that
a
truth,
once
found,
can
be
hidden
away,
buried
under
the
surface,
but
not
undone.
And
yet
the
Ptolemaic
earth-centred
universe,
ignoring
the
specific
role
of
the
sun,
held
the
monopoly
in
scientific
thought
for
fifteen
centuries.
Is
there
an
explanation
for
this
remarkable
paradox?

It
has
been
frequently
suggested
that
the
explanation
is
fear
of
religious
persecution.
But
all
the
evidence
quoted
in
support
of
this
view
consists
of
a
single,
facetious
remark
by
a
character
in
Plutarch
dialogue
On
the
Face
in
the
Moon
Disc
,
which
I
have
mentioned
before.
The
character,
Lucius,
is
playfully
accused
of
"turning
the
universe
upside
down"
by
pretending
that
the
moon
consists
of
solid
matter
like
the
earth;
he
is
then
invited
to
explain
his
views
further:

"
Lucius
smiled
and
said:
'Very
well;
only
do
not
bring
against
me
a
charge
of
impiety
such
as
Cleanthes
used
to
say
that
it
behoved
Greeks
to
bring
against
Aristarchus
of
Samos
for
moving
the
Hearth
of
the
Universe,
because
he
tried
to
save
the
phenomena
by
the
assumption
that
the
heaven
is
at
rest,
but
that
the
earth
revolves
in
an
oblique
orbit,
while
also
rotating
about
its
own
axis.'"
13

However,
the
charge
was
never
brought;
neither
Aristarchus,
who
was
held
in
the
highest
esteem,
nor
Herakleides
or
any
other
adherent
of
the
earth's
motion,
was
persecuted
or
indicted.
If
Cleanthes
had
really
tried
to
have
anybody
indicted
on
the
grounds
of
"moving
the
Hearth
of
the
Universe",
then
the
first
person
charged
with
impiety
would
have
been
the
venerated
Aristotle;
for
Aristarchus
merely
made
the
Hearth
move
with
the
earth
through
space,
whereas
Aristotle
removed
the
Hearth
to
the
periphery
of
the
world,
deprived
the
earth
altogether
of
the
divine
presence,
and
made
it
the
lowliest
place
in
the
world.
In
reality,
the
"Hearth
of
the
Universe"
was
no
more
than
a
poetic
allusion
to
the
Pythagorean
Central
Fire,
and
it
would
be
absurd
to
regard
it
as
a
religious
dogma.
Cleanthes
himself
was
a
mystically
inclined,
and
rather
sour
Stoic
philosopher,
who
wrote
a
hymn
to
Zeus
and
despised
science.
His
attitude
to
Aristarchus,
a
scientist
and
a
Samian
to
boot,
that
island
from
which
no
good
has
ever
come,
was
evidently
"the
fellow
deserves
to
be
hanged".
Apart
from
this
bit
of
academic
gossip
in
Plutarch,
there
is
no
mention
in
any
of
the
sources
of
religious
intolerance
toward
science
in
the
Hellenistic
Age.
¹⁴

4.
Knowing and Un-Knowing

Thus
neither
ignorance,
nor
the
threats
of
an
imaginary
Alexandrian
inquisition,
can
serve
to
explain
why
the
Greek
astronomers,
after
having
discovered
the
heliocentric
system,
turned
their
backs
on
it.
¹⁵
However,
they
never
did
so
entirely;
as
the
passages
previously
quoted,
from
Cicero
and
Plutarch
to
Macrobius,
indicate,
they
knew
that
the
sun
governed
the
motions
of
the
planets,
but
at
the
same
time
closed
their
eyes
to
the
fact.
But
perhaps
it
is
this
irrationality
itself
which
provides
the
clue
to
the
solution,
by
jolting
us
out
of
the
habit
of
treating
the
history
of
science
in
purely
rational
terms.
Why
should
we
allow
artists,
conquerors
and
statesmen
to
be
guided
by
irrational
motives,
but
not
the
heroes
of
science?
The
post-Aristotelian
astronomers
denied
the
rule
of
the
sun
over
the
planets
and
affirmed
it
at
the
same
time;
while
conscious
reasoning
rejects
such
a
paradox,
it
is
in
the
nature
of
the
unconscious
that
it
may
simultaneously
affirm
and
deny,
say
yes
and
no
to
the
same
question;
to
know
and
to
un-know,
as
it
were.
Greek
science
in
the
age
of
decline
was
faced
with
an
insoluble
conflict,
which
resulted
in
a
split
of
the
mind;
and
this
"controlled
schizophrenia"
continued
throughout
the
Dark
and
Middle
Ages,
until
it
came
to
be
almost
taken
for
granted
as
the
normal
condition
of
man.
It
was
maintained,
not
by
threats
from
outside,
but
by
a
kind
of
censor
planted
inside
the
mind,
who
kept
it
separated
into
strictly
non-communicating
compartments.