The Sleepwalkers (34 page)

5.
The New Mythology

It
looks
as
if
the
wheel
had
come
full
circle,
back
to
the
early
Babylonians.
They
too
had
been
highly
competent
observers
and
calendar-makers,
who
combined
their
exact
science
with
a
mythological
dream-world.
In
the
universe
of
Ptolemy,
interlocking
canals
of
perfect
circles
have
replaced
the
heavenly
waterways,
along
which
the
star-gods
sail
their
barges
on
their
precisely
charted
journeys.
The
Platonic
mythology
of
the
sky
was
more
abstract
and
less
colourful,
but
as
irrational
and
dreamborn
as
the
older
one.

The
three
fundamental
conceits
of
this
new
mythology
were:
the
dualism
of
the
celestial
and
sub-lunary
worlds;
the
immobility
of
the
earth
in
the
centre;
and
the
circularity
of
all
heavenly
motion.
I
have
tried
to
show
that
the
common
denominator
of
the
three,
and
the
secret
of
their
unconscious
appeal,
was
the
fear
of
change,
the
craving
for
stability
and
permanence
in
a
disintegrating
culture.
A
modicum
of
split-mindedness
and
double-think
was
perhaps
not
too
high
a
price
to
pay
for
allaying
the
fear
of
the
unknown.

But
whether
the
price
was
high
or
low,
it
had
to
be
paid:
the
universe
was
put
into
the
deep
freeze,
science
was
paralyzed,
and
the
manufacture
of
artificial
moons
and
nuclear
warheads
was
delayed
by
a
millennium
or
more.
Whether,
sub
specie
aeternitatis
,
this
was
a
Good
Thing
or
a
Bad
Thing,
we
shall
never
know;
but
as
far
as
our
limited
topic
is
concerned,
it
was
clearly
a
bad
thing.
The
earth-centred,
dualistic,
circular
view
of
the
cosmos
excluded
all
progress
and
all
compromise
for
fear
of
endangering
its
main
principle,
stability.
Thus,
it
could
not
even
be
admitted
that
the
two
inner
planets
circled
round
the
sun,
because
once
you
gave
way
on
this
apparently
harmless
minor
point,
the
next
logical
step
would
be
to
extend
the
idea
to
the
outer
planets
and
to
the
earth
itself
–
as
the
development
of
the
Herakleidian
deviation
had
clearly
shown.
The
frightened
mind,
always
on
the
defensive,
is
particularly
aware
of
the
dangers
of
yielding
an
inch
to
the
devil.

The
anxiety
complex
of
the
late
Greek
cosmologists
becomes
almost
palpable
in
a
curious
passage
²⁰
by
Ptolemy
himself,
in
which
he
defends
the
immobility
of
the
earth.
He
starts
with
the
usual
commonsense
argument
that
if
the
earth
moved,
"all
the
animals
and
all
separate
weights
would
be
left
behind
floating
on
the
air"
–
which
sounds
plausible
enough,
though
the
Pythagoreans
and
atomists
had
long
before
Ptolemy
realized
its
fallacious
nature.
But
then
Ptolemy
continues
to
say
that
if
the
earth
were
really
moving,
it
would
"at
its
great
speed,
have
fallen
completely
out
of
the
universe
itself".
Now
this
is
not
plausible
even
on
a
naive
level,
for
the
only
motion
attributed
to
the
earth
was
a
circular
motion
round
the
sun,
which
entailed
no
risk
of
falling
out
of
the
universe,
just
as
the
sun
incurred
no
such
risk
by
circling
the
earth.
Ptolemy,
of
course,
knew
this
quite
well
–
or,
more
precisely,
one
compartment
of
his
mind
knew
it,
while
the
other
was
hypnotized
by
the
fear
that
once
the
earth's
stability
was
shaken,
the
world
would
fly
to
pieces.

The
myth
of
the
perfect
circle
had
an
equally
deep-rooted,
spell-binding
power.
It
is,
after
all,
one
of
the
oldest
symbols;
the
ritual
of
drawing
a
magic
circle
around
a
person
protects
him
against
hostile
spirits
and
perils
of
the
soul;
it
marks
off
a
place
as
an
inviolable
sanctuary;
it
was
commonly
used
in
tracing
out
the
sulcus
primigenius
,
the
first
furrow,
when
founding
a
new
city.
Apart
from
being
a
symbol
of
stability
and
protection,
the
circle,
or
wheel,
had
a
technological
plausibility,
as
it
were,
as
a
suitable
element
for
any
machine.
But
on
the
other
hand,
the
planetary
orbits
were
evidently
not
circles;
they
were
eccentric,
bulging,
oval
–
of
egg-shaped.
They
could
be
made
to
appear
as
the
product
of
a
combination
of
circles
by
geometrical
artifices,
but
only
at
the
price
of
renouncing
any
semblance
of
physical
reality.
There
exist
some
fragmentary
remains,
dating
from
the
first
century
A.D.,
of
a
small-sized
Greek
planetarium
–
a
mechanical
model
designed
to
reproduce
the
motions
of
sun,
moon,
and
perhaps
also
of
the
planets.
But
its
wheels,
or
at
least
some
of
them,
are
not
circular
–
they
are
egg-shaped.
²¹
A
glance
at
the
orbit
of
Mercury
in
the
Ptolemaic
system
on
p.
68
shows
a
similar
eggshaped
curve
staring
into
one's
face.
All
these
pointers
were
ignored,
relegated
into
limbo
as
a
sacrifice
to
circle-worship.