And Because He Believed
Those Countries Which He Expected To Discover Formed The Eastern And
Formerly Unknown Lands Of India, And Had No Appropriate Name Of Their Own,
He Therefore Gave Them The Name Of The Nearest Known Country, And Called
Them The West Indies.
He was, so much the more induced to choose this
appellation that the riches and wealth of India were
Well known, and he
thereby expected the more readily to induce their Catholic Majesties to
accede to his proposed undertaking, of the success of which they were
doubtful; by saying that he intended to discover the way to India by the
west: And he was desirous of being employed in the service of the crown of
Castile, in preference to any other.
The second motive which encouraged the admiral to undertake his great
enterprize, and which might reasonably induce him to call the countries he
proposed to discover by the name of the Indies, was derived from the
authority of learned men; who had affirmed that it was possible to sail
from the western coast of Africa and Spain to the eastern bounds of India
by the westwards, and that the sea which lay between these limits was of
no great extent. This is affirmed by Aristotle, in his Second Book of the
Heaven and of the World, as explained by Averroes; in which he says that a
person may sail from India to Cadiz in a few days. Seneca, in his book of
Nature, reflecting upon the knowledge of this world as insignificant in
comparison with what shall be attained in a future life, says that a ship
may sail in a few days with a fair wind from Spain to India.
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