Still, they were not all of this temper. Had they been, they would have
discovered, not merely a little, but absolutely nothing. For after all,
if we will consider, induction being the right path to knowledge, every
man, whether he knows it or not, uses induction, more or less, by the
mere fact of his having a human reason, and knowing anything at all; as
M. Jourdain talked prose all his life without being aware of it.
Aristarchus is principally famous for his attempt to discover the
distance of the sun as compared with that of the moon. His method was
ingenious enough, but too rough for success, as it depended principally
on the belief that the line bounding the bright part of the moon was an
exact straight line. The result was of course erroneous. He concluded
that the sun was 18 times as far as the moon, and not, as we now know,
400; but his conclusion, like his conception of the vast extent of the
sphere of the fixed stars, was far enough in advance of the popular
doctrine to subject him, according to Plutarch, to a charge of impiety.
Eratosthenes, again, contributed his mite to the treasure of human
science--his one mite; and yet by that he is better known than by all
the volumes which he seems to have poured out, on Ethics, Chronology,
Criticism on the Old Attic Comedy, and what not, spun out of his weary
brain during a long life of research and meditation.
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