Chapter XI.

Of the Site and Position of the Earth.

The disciples of Thales say that the earth is the centre of the universe. Xenophanes, that it is first, being rooted in the infinite space. Philolaus the Pythagorean gives to fire the middle place, and this is the source fire of the universe; the second place to the Antichthon; the third to that earth which we inhabit, which is placed in opposition unto and whirled about the opposite - which is the reason that those which inhabit that earth cannot be seen by us. Parmenides was the first that confined the habitable world to the two solstitial (or temperate) zones.