the
antipodes, St. Augustine asserts that "it is impossible there should be
inhabitants on the opposite side of the earth, since no such race is
recorded by Scripture among the descendants of Adam."

[Sidenote: The doctrines of Patristicism.]

Patristicism, or the science of the Fathers, was thus essentially
founded on the principle that the Scriptures contain all knowledge
permitted to man. It followed, therefore, that natural phenomena may be
interpreted by the aid of texts, and that all philosophical doctrines
must be moulded to the pattern of orthodoxy. It asserted that God made
the world out of nothing, since to admit the eternity of matter leads to
Manichaeism. It taught that the earth is a plane, and the sky a vault
above it, in which the stars are fixed, and the sun, moon, and planets
perform their motions, rising and setting; that these bodies are
altogether of a subordinate nature, their use being to give light to
man; that still higher and beyond the vault of the sky is heaven, the
abode of God and the angelic hosts; that in six days the earth, and all
that it contains, were made; that it was overwhelmed by a universal
deluge, which destroyed all living things save those preserved in the
ark, the waters being subsequently dried up by the wind; that man is the
moral centre of the world; for him all things were created and are
sustained; that, so far as his ever having shown any tendency to
improvement, he has fallen both in wisdom and worth, the first man,
before his sin, having been perfect in body and soul: hence Patristicism
ever looked backward, never forward; that through that sin death came
into the world; not even any animal had died previously, but all had
been immortal. It utterly rejected the idea of the government of the
world by law, asserting the perpetual interference of an instant
Providence on all occasions, not excepting the most trifling. It
resorted to spiritual influences in the production of natural effects,
assigning to angels the duty of moving the stars, carrying up water from
the sea to form rain, and managing eclipses. It affirmed that man had
existed but a few centuries upon earth, and that he could continue only
a little longer, for that the world itself might every moment be
expected to be burned up by fire. It deduced all the families of the
earth from one primitive pair, and made them all morally responsible for
the sin committed by that pair. It rejected the doctrine that man