Note 133 — Chapter III · 1474-1492.

“But as to the fable that there are antipodes—that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us—men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other; hence they say that the part which is beneath must be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled. For Scripture, which proves the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, gives no false information; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from the first man.”—Sancti Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis episcopi operum. Tomus Septimus. Antwerpiæ. 1700. De Civitate Dei. lib. xvi. cap. ix. The works of Aurelius Augustine, bishop of Hippo. Trans. by the Rev. Marcus Dods. Edinburgh. 1871.

Lactantius, another theologian, in the fourth century, argued in the same way: “Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that the plants and trees on the other side of the earth hang downward, and that men there have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask of them how they defend these monstrosities, how things do not fall away from the earth on that side, they reply that the nature of things is such that heavy bodies tend toward the centre, like the spokes of a wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the centre it toward the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere in their folly and defend one absurd opinion by another.”—Div. Institutiones. lib. iii.