The Sleepwalkers (25 page)

"And
he
gave
the
universe
the
figure
which
is
proper
and
natural...
Wherefore
he
turned
it,
as
in
a
lathe,
round
and
spherical,
with
its
extremities
equidistant
in
all
directions
from
the
centre,
the
figure
of
all
figures
most
perfect
and
most
like
to
itself,
for
he
deemed
the
like
more
beautiful
than
the
unlike.
To
the
whole
he
gave,
on
the
outside
round
about,
a
surface
perfectly
finished
and
smooth,
for
many
reasons.
It
had
no
need
of
eyes,
for
nothing
visible
was
left
outside
it;
nor
of
hearing,
for
there
was
nothing
audible
outside
it;
and
there
was
no
breath
outside
it
requiring
to
be
inhaled...
He
allotted
to
it
the
motion
which
was
proper
to
its
bodily
form,
that
motion
of
the
seven
motions
which
is
most
bound
up
with
understanding
and
intelligence.
Wherefore,
turning
it
round
in
one
and
the
same
place
upon
itself,
he
made
it
move
with
circular
rotation;
all
the
other
six
motions
[i.e.,
straight
motion
up
and
down,
forward
and
back,
right
and
left]
he
took
away
from
it
and
made
it
exempt
from
their
wanderings.
And
since
for
this
revolution
it
had
no
need
of
feet,
he
created
it
without
legs
and
without
feet...
Smooth
and
even
and
everywhere
equidistant
from
the
centre,
a
body
whole
and
perfect,
made
up
of
perfect
bodies..."
¹²

Accordingly,
the
task
of
the
mathematicians
was
now
to
design
a
system
which
would
reduce
the
apparent
irregularities
in
the
motions
of
the
planets
to
regular
motions
in
perfectly
regular
circles.
This
task
kept
them
busy
for
the
next
two
thousand
years.
With
his
poetic
and
innocent
demand,
Plato
laid
a
curse
on
astronomy,
whose
effects
were
to
last
till
the
beginning
of
the
seventeenth
century,
when
Kepler
proved
that
planets
move
in
oval,
and
not
circular
orbits.
There
is
perhaps
no
other
example
in
the
history
of
thought
of
such
dogged,
obsessional
persistence
in
error,
as
the
circular
fallacy
which
bedevilled
astronomy
for
two
millennia.

But
here
again,
Plato
had
merely
thrown
out,
in
semi-allegorical
language,
a
suggestion
which
was
quite
in
keeping
with
the
Pythagorean
tradition;
it
was
Aristotle
who
promoted
the
idea
of
circular
motion
to
a
dogma
of
astronomy.

3.
The Fear of Change

In
Plato's
world
the
boundaries
between
the
metaphorical
and
the
factual
are
fluid;
all
such
ambiguity
disappears
as
Aristotle
takes
over.
With
pedantic
thoroughness
the
vision
is
dissected,
its
poetic
tissue
is
preserved
in
vitro
,
its
volatile
spirit
condensed
and
frozen.
The
result
is
the
Aristotelian
model
of
the
universe.

The
Ionians
had
prised
the
world-oyster
open,
the
Pythagoreans
had
set
the
earth-ball
adrift
in
it,
the
Atomists
dissolved
its
boundaries
in
the
infinite.
Aristotle
closed
the
lid
again
with
a
bang,
shoved
the
earth
back
into
the
world's
centre,
and
deprived
it
of
motion.

I
shall describe the model first in its broad outline, and fill in the
details later.

The
immobile
earth
is
surrounded,
as
in
the
earlier
cosmologies,
by
nine
concentric,
transparent
spheres,
enclosing
each
other
like
the
skins
of
an
onion
(see
Fig.
A,
p.
46).
The
innermost
skin
is
the
sphere
of
the
moon;
the
two
outermost
are
the
sphere
of
the
fixed
stars,
and
beyond
that,
the
sphere
of
the
Prime
Mover,
who
keeps
the
whole
machinery
turning:
God.

The
God
of
Aristotle
no
longer
rules
the
world
from
the
inside,
but
from
the
outside.
It
is
the
end
of
the
Pythagorean
central
fire,
the
hearth
of
Zeus,
as
a
divine
source
of
cosmic
energy;
the
end
of
Plato's
mystic
conception
of
the
anima
mundi
,
of
the
world
as
a
living
animal
possessed
with
a
divine
soul.
Aristotle's
God,
the
Unmoved
Mover,
who
spins
the
world
round
from
outside
it,
is
the
God
of
abstract
theology.
Goethe's
"
Was
wär'
ein
Gott
der
nur
von
aussen
stiesse
"
–
seems
to
be
aimed
directly
at
him.
The
removal
of
God's
home
from
the
centre
to
the
periphery
automatically
transformed
the
central
region,
occupied
by
earth
and
moon,
into
that
farthest
away
from
Him:
the
humblest
and
lowliest
of
the
whole
universe.
The
space
enclosed
by
the
sphere
of
the
moon
and
containing
the
earth
–
the
"sub-lunary
region"
–
is
now
considered
definitely
inferior.
To
this
region,
and
to
this
region
alone,
are
the
horrors
of
Change,
of
mutability
confined.
Beyond
the
sphere
of
the
moon,
the
heavens
are
eternal
and
unalterable.