Note 16 — Chapter I · SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.

Strabo, i. p. 7. Diogenes Laertius (ii. 1) states that Anaximander affirmed the figure of the earth to be spherical; and Dr. Whewell, in his History of the Inductive Sciences, follows his statement. But Schleiermacher (Ueber Anaximandros, vol. ii. p. 204 of his Sämmtliche Werke) and Gruppe (Die Kosmischen Systeme der Griechen, p. 38) contest this assertion, and prefer that of Plutarch (ap. Eusebium Præp. Evang. i. 8, Placit. Philos. iii. 10), which I have adopted in the text. It is to be remembered that Diogenes himself, in another place (ix. 3, 21), affirms Parmenides to have been the first who propounded the spherical figure of the earth. See the facts upon this subject collected and discussed in the instructive dissertation of L. Oettinger, Die Vorstellungen der Griechen und Römer ueber die Erde als Himmelskörper, p. 38; Freiburg, 1850.