The Sleepwalkers (268 page)

Now
neither
Socrates,
nor
Protagoras,
had
anything
to
do
with
astronomy,
and
the
only
instance
of
persecution
throughout
antiquity
is
the
imprisonment
of
Anaxagoras,
in
the
sixth
century
B.C.,
though,
according
to
another
source,
he
was
merely
fined
and
temporarily
exiled;
he
died
at
seventy-two.

In
the light of this one can hardly agree with Duhem's comment:

"The
obstacles
by
which,
in
the
seventeenth
century,
the
Protestant,
and
later
the
Catholic
church,
obstructed
the
progress
of
the
Copernican
doctrine,
can
only
convey
to
us
a
feeble
idea
of
the
charges
of
impiety
incurred,
in
pagan
antiquity,
by
the
mortal
who
dared
to
shake
the
perpetual
immobility
of
the
Hearth
of
the
Divinity
(
sic
),
and
to
put
those
incorruptible
and
divine
beings,
the
stars,
on
the
same
footing
as
the
earth,
humble
domain
of
generation
and
decay"
(op.
cit.,
I,
p.
425).

The
only
support
for
this
statement
is
again
Plutarch's
anecdotical
remark
about
Cleanthes.
It
should
be
noted
that
in
Duhem's
version
Aristotle's
metaphysics
is
treated
as
if
it
had
become
the
pagan
equivalent
of
Christian
dogma;
at
the
same
time
Aristotle
himself
becomes
a
heretic,
for
he,
too,
had
laid
hands
on
"the
Hearth
of
Divinity".
The
reasons
for
this
slip-up,
and
for
the
inflated
importance
given
to
the
Cleanthes
story,
become
evident
when
Duhem
proceeds
to
quote
with
approval
Paul
Tannery
(whose
religious
convictions
he
shares),
to
the
effect
that
though
Galileo
was
mistakenly
condemned
by
the
Inquisition,
"he
would
probably
have
incurred
much
more
serious
dangers
if
he
had
to
fight
against
the
star-worshipping
superstitions
of
antiquity."
Owing
to
Duhem's
authority,
the
Cleanthes
legend
has
found
its
way
into
most
of
the
popular
histories
of
science
(as
a
twin
to
the
equally
apocryphal
"eppur
si
muove");
and
is
quoted
in
support
of
the
view
(which
was
certainly
not
Duhem's
intention)
that
an
innate
and
irreconcilable
hostility
always
existed,
and
must
always
exist,
between
religion,
in
any
form,
and
science.
A
notable
exception
is
Dreyer
(cf.
op.
cit.,
p.
148),
who
comments
simply
that
in
Aristarchus'
days
"the
time
was
long
past
when
a
philosopher
might
be
judicially
called
to
account
for
proposing
startling
astronomical
theories",
and
that
"the
accusation
of
'impiety',
if
it
was
really
brought
forward,
can
hardly
have
done
the
theory
much
harm."

15

One
other
attempted
explanation
must
be
briefly
discussed.
Dreyer
sees
the
reason
for
the
abandonment
of
the
heliocentric
system
in
the
rise
of
observational
astronomy
in
Alexandria.
Aristarchus
could
explain
the
retrograde
motions
of
the
planets
and
their
change
of
brilliancy,
but
not
the
anomalies
arising
from
the
ellipticity
of
their
orbits;
and
"the
hopelessness
of
trying
to
account
for
them
by
the
beautifully
simple
idea
of
Aristarchus
must
have
given
the
death
blow
to
his
system"
(p.
148).
Duhem's
explanation
is
the
same
(pp.
425-6).
But
this
seems
rather
to
beg
the
question,
for
the
so-called
"second
anomaly"
could
just
as
well
be
saved
by
epicycles
in
the
heliocentric
as
in
the
geocentric
system;
and
this
is
indeed
what
Copernicus
did.
In
other
words,
either
system
could
serve
as
a
starting
point
for
building
a
"Ferris
wheel";
but
with
Aristarchus
as
a
starting
point
the
task
would
have
been
incomparably
simpler,
because
the
"first
anomaly"
was
already
eliminated.
On
second
thoughts,
Dreyer
seems
to
have
realized
this,
for
he
subsequently
(p.
201
f.)
says:

"To
the
modern
mind,
accustomed
to
the
heliocentric
idea,
it
is
difficult
to
understand
why
it
did
not
occur
to
a
mathematician
like
Ptolemy
to
deprive
all
the
outer
planets
of
their
epicycles,
which
were
nothing
but
reproductions
of
the
earth's
annual
orbit
transferred
to
each
of
these
planets,
and
also
to
deprive
Mercury
and
Venus
of
their
deferents
and
place
the
centres
of
their
epicycles
in
the
sun,
as
Herakleides
had
done.
It
is
in
fact
possible
to
reproduce
Ptolemy's
values
of
the
ratio
of
the
radii
of
epicycle
and
deferent
from
the
semi-axis
major
of
each
planet
expressed
in
units
of
that
of
the
earth...
Obviously
the
heliocentric
idea
of
Aristarchus
might
just
as
well
have
sprung
out
of
the
epicyclic
theory
as
from
that
of
movable
eccentrics..."