age, appeared to Ptolemy to prove that the sphere which contained those stars, and on whose surface they were believed by him to be fixed, revolved completely around the earth once every day.  He would thus account for all the phenomena of rising and setting consistently with the supposition that our globe was stationary.  Probably this supposition must have appeared monstrous, even to Ptolemy.  He knew that the earth was a gigantic object, but, large as it may have been, he knew that it was only a particle in comparison with the celestial sphere, yet he apparently believed, and certainly succeeded in persuading other men to believe, that the celestial sphere did actually perform these movements.

Ptolemy was an excellent geometer.  He knew that the rising and the setting of the sun, the moon, and the myriad stars, could have been accounted for in a different way.  If the earth turned round uniformly once a day while poised at the centre of the sphere of the heavens, all the phenomena of rising and setting could be completely explained.  This is, indeed, obvious after a moment’s reflection.  Consider yourself to be standing on the earth at the centre of the heavens.  There are stars over your head, and half the contents of the heavens are visible, while the other half are below your horizon.  As the earth turns round, the stars over your head will change, and unless it should happen that you have taken up your position at either of the poles, new stars will pass into your view, and others will disappear, for at no time can you have more than half of the whole sphere visible.  The observer on the earth would, therefore, say that some stars were rising, and that some stars were setting.  We have, therefore, two totally distinct methods, each of which would completely explain all the observed facts of the diurnal movement.  One of these suppositions requires that the celestial sphere, bearing with it the stars and other celestial bodies, turns uniformly around an invisible axis, while the earth remains stationary at the centre.  The other supposition would be, that it is the stupendous celestial sphere which remains stationary, while the earth at the centre rotates about the same axis as the celestial sphere did before, but in an opposite direction, and with a uniform velocity which would enable it to complete one turn in twenty-four hours.  Ptolemy was mathematician enough to know that either of these suppositions would suffice for the explanation of the observed facts.  Indeed, the phenomena of the movements of the stars, so far as he could observe them, could not be called upon to pronounce which of these views was true, and which was false.