Some Alleged, That Since So Many Skilful Sailors, During The Many Thousand
Years Which Had Elapsed From The Creation Of
The world, had not acquired
any knowledge whatever of these countries, it was not at all probable that
he should
Know more of the matter than all who had gone before or who now
existed. Others, pretending to ground their opinion upon cosmographical
arguments, said that the world was of such prodigious size that they
questioned if it were possible to sail in three years to the eastern
extremity of India, whither he proposed to go; and they endeavoured to
confirm this opinion by the authority of Seneca, who says in one of his
works, "That many wise men disagreed about whether the ocean were of
infinite extent, and doubted whether it were navigable, and whether
habitable lands existed on its other side; and, even if so, whether it
were possible to go to these." They added, that only a small proportion of
this terraqueous globe, which had remained in our hemisphere above the
water, was habitable; and that all the rest was sea, which was not
sussceptible of being navigated, except near the coasts and rivers; and
that wise men denied the possibility of sailing from the coast of Spain to
the farthest parts of the west. Others argued nearly in the same manner as
had been formerly done by the Portuguese in regard to the navigation along
the western coast of Africa: That if any one should sail due westwards, as
proposed by the admiral, it would certainly be impossible to return again
to Spain; because whoever should sail beyond the hemisphere which was
known to Ptolemy, would then go downwards upon the rotundity of the globe,
and then it would be impossible to sail up again on their return, which
would necessarily be to climb up hill, and which no ship could accomplish
even with the stiffest gale. Although the admiral gave perfectly valid
answers to all these objections; yet, such was the ignorance of these
people, that the more his reasons were powerful and conclusive so much the
less were they understood: For when people have grown old in prejudices
and false notions of philosophy and mathematics, these get such firm hold
of the mind that true and just principles are utterly unintelligible.
The prior and his coadjutors were all influenced by a Spanish proverb,
which, though contradictory to reason and common sense, says Dubitat
Augustinus, or it is contradicted by St Augustine; who, in the 9th
chapter of the 21st book of his city of God, denies the possibility of the
Antipodes, or that any person should be able to go from one hemisphere
into the other. They farther urged against the admiral the commonly
received opinions concerning the five zones, by which the torrid zone is
declared utterly uninhabitable, and many other arguments equally absurd
and ridiculous. Upon the whole, they concluded to give judgment against
the enterprize as vain and impracticable, and that it did not become the
state and dignity of such great princes to act upon such weak information
as they conceived to have been communicated.
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