The warfare of science / [Andrew Dickson White].

  • White, Andrew Dickson, 1832-1918.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The warfare of science / [Andrew Dickson White]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    testing against the doctrine of the antipodes as “ unsafe.” He has invented a new missile—the following syllogism: “ The apostles were com- manded to go into all the world, and to preach the gospel to every creature; they did not go to any such part of the world as the antipodes, they did not preach to any creatures there: ergo, no antipodes exist.” This is just before the time of Columbus. Columbus is the next warrior. The world has heard of his battles: how the Bishop of Ceuta worsted him in Portugal; how at the Junta of Salamanca the theologians overwhelmed him with quotations from the Psalms, from St. Paul, and from St. Augustine.* And even after Columbus was triumphant, and after his voyage had greatly strengthened the theory of the earth’s sphericity, the Church, by its highest authority, was again solemnly committed to the theory of the earth’s flatness. In 1493 Pope Alexander YI. issues a bull laying down a line of demarkation upon the earth as a flat disk; this line was drawn from north to south, west of the Azores and Canary Islands; and the Pope, in the plenitude of his knowledge and powers, declared that all lands ’ For Columbus before the Junta of Salamanca, see Irving's Columbus, Murray’s edition, vol. ii., pp. 405-410. Figuier, Sa- vants du Moyen Age, etc., vol. ii., p. 394, et seq. Also, Humboldt, Histoire de la Geographic du Nouveau Continent.