ears to
accept this opinion of the majority,--it at least serves as well as the
contrary hypothesis for the purpose of his calculation,--but he goes on
to say: "Aristarchus of Samos, in his writing against the astronomers,
seeks to establish the fact that the world is really very different
from this. He holds the opinion that the fixed stars and the sun are
immovable and that the earth revolves in a circular line about the sun,
the sun being at the centre of this circle." This remarkable bit of
testimony establishes beyond question the position of Aristarchus of
Samos as the Copernicus of antiquity. We must make further inquiry as to
the teachings of the man who had gained such a remarkable insight into
the true system of the heavens.

ARISTARCHUS OF SAMOS, THE COPERNICUS OF ANTIQUITY

It appears that Aristarchus was a contemporary of Archimedes, but the
exact dates of his life are not known. He was actively engaged in making
astronomical observations in Samos somewhat before the middle of the
third century B.C.; in other words, just at the time when the activities
of the Alexandrian school were at their height. Hipparchus, at a later
day, was enabled to compare his own observations with those made by
Aristarchus, and, as we have just seen, his work was well known to so
distant a contemporary as Archimedes. Yet the facts of his life are
almost a blank for us, and of his writings only a single one has been
preserved. That one, however, is a most important and interesting paper
on the measurements of the sun and the moon. Unfortunately, this paper
gives us no direct clew as to the opinions of Aristarchus concerning the
relative positions of the earth and sun. But the testimony of Archimedes
as to this is unequivocal, and this testimony is supported by other
rumors in themselves less authoritative.

In contemplating this astronomer of Samos, then, we are in the presence
of a man who had solved in its essentials the problem of the mechanism
of the solar system. It appears from the words of Archimedes
that Aristarchus; had propounded his theory in explicit writings.
Unquestionably, then, he held to it as a positive doctrine, not as a
mere vague guess. We shall show, in a moment, on what grounds he based
his opinion. Had his teaching found vogue, the story of science would be
very different from what it is. We should then have no tale to tell of
a Copernicus coming upon the scene fully seventeen hundred years later
with