...wield 80 The mighty frame ; how build, unbuild, contrive To save appearances ; how gird the Sphere With Centric and Eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb. Already by thy reasoning this I guess, Who art to lead thy offspring, and supposest That bodies bright...

...cumbrous hypotheses to explain their apparent deviation from perfection, hence was the sphere girt " With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." The same fallacy of symmetry surely underlies the notion that the earth is dethroned from its hegemony...

...(in the Ptolemaic System, &c.) " to model heaven and calculate the stars," by girding " the sphere with centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." " Great or bright infers not excellence," i. «. we must not infer the real sizes of the heavenly bodies...

...referred to in the following passage, as invented " to save appearances " by girding .... the sphere With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb. (PL vm. 82.) But leaving now these unreal astronomical artifices, Milton had a sound knowledge of elementary...

...however, were long since determined by induction. Hence arose the Ptolemaic system " Which girt the sphere With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." Such was the complicated system " contrived to save appearances," as Milton says ; and induction unaided...

...seemed to account for the movements of the heavenly bodies. It was seen to be a complicated theory, "With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb," and there were not wanting those who doubted its truth. It held its place, however, till the sixteenth...

...presumption of astronomers who " build, upbuild, contrive to save appearances," and Gird the Sphere With Centric and Eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb. But Milton's criticism of the ingenuity of the astronomers is less caustic than More's: Here 'gins...

...represent the newly observed phenomena till in the later Middle Ages the universe became a I -~J « Sphere With Centric and Eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb"— 1 Yet the heliocentric theory was not forgotten. Vitruvius, a famous Roman architect of the Augustan...

...told that when the Ptolemaic system of astronomy was explained to a certain King of Spain, The Sphere, With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb, he said that if the Almighty had consulted him before creating the universe he could have given Him...

...epicycle to epicycle, until there was every justification for Milton's verses descriptive of the sphere: With Centric and Eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb. CHAPTER VII ASTRONOMY OF THE MIDDLE AGES WITH the fall of Alexandria and the victory of Mohammed throughout...