The gradual acceptance of the Copernican theory of the universe

d theory. Eighteen hundred years later Galileo would not do so, even though in his day the theory was by no means unsupported by observation.

[Footnote 16: The Stoic contemporary of Aristarchus, author of the famous Stoic hymn. See Diogenes Laertius: De Vitis.]

[Footnote 17: Plutarch: De Facie in Orbe Lunae, (V, 410).]

Furthermore, one of the weaknesses of the Greek civilization militated strongly against the acceptance of this hypothesis so contrary to the evidence of the senses. Experimentation and the development of applied science was practically an impossibility where the existence of slaves made manual labor degrading and shameful. Men might reason indefinitely; but few, if any, were willing to try to improve the instruments of observation or to test their observations by experiments.

At the same time another astronomical theory was developing which was an adequate explanation for the phenomena observed up to that time.[18] This theory of epicycles and eccen