Excerpt from The Social and Political Dependence of Women A large number of the errors, and want of success, in physical inquiries among the Greeks, may be traced to this mental infirmity. Aristotle assumed that motion in a circle was the perfect kind of motion, and thence inferred that such was the motion of the heavenly bodies, since it would be absurd to suppose that they could have any other than the perfect mo tion. The doctrine of the four elements was proved in a somewhat similar way. The belief in antipodes was long rejected, because it assumed the absurdity that men could exist with their heads continually downwards. Copernicus, though supported by a bishop, a cardinal, and. Two of the most learned astronomers of the age, dared not give his dis coveries to the world till eleven years after they were made. His opinions meanwhile getting noised abroad, he was satirized on the stage at Elburg. The persecution of Galileo in his old age, is one of the most melancholy events in the progress of learn ing. His doctrines were branded as hor'etieal and absurd; and who so branded them The inquisitors and others whose ignorance astonished him. Har vey's and. J caner's discoveries were met with ridicule and contempt. And more recently, a writer in the Edinburgh Review earne'dl an unenviable no toriety, by ridiculing the notion that men would ever. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.