I endeavoured, in the beginning of the first volume, to divide the sources of pleasure open to us in Art into certain groups, which might conveniently be studied in succession. After some preliminary discussion, it was concluded that these groups were, in the main, three; consisting, first, of the pleasures taken in perceiving simple resemblance to Nature Ideas of Truth ; secondly, of the pleasures taken in the beauty of the things chosen to be painted Ideas of Beauty ; and, lastly, of pleasures taken in the meanings and relations of these things Ideas of Relation.
The first volume, treating of the ideas of Truth, was chiefly occupied with an inquiry into the various success with which different artists had represented the facts of Nature,—an inquiry necessarily conducted very imperfectly, owing to the want of pictorial illustration. The second volume merely opened the inquiry into the nature of ideas of Beauty and Relation, by analysing as far as I was able to do so the two faculties of the human mind which mainly seized such ideas; namely, the contemplative and imaginative faculties.
It remains for us to examine the various success of artists, especially of the great landscape-painter whose works have been throughout our principal subject, in addressing these faculties of the human mind, and to consider who among them has conveyed the noblest ideas of beauty, and touched the deepest sources of thought.
I do not intend, however, now to pursue the inquiry in a method so laboriously systematic; for the subject may, it seems to me, be more usefully treated by pursuing the different questions which rise out of it just as they occur to us, without too great scrupulousness in marking connections, or insisting on sequences.
Much time is wasted by human beings, in general, on establishment of systems; and it often takes more labour to master the intricacies of an artificial connection, than to remember the separate facts which are so carefully connected. I suspect that system-makers, in general, are not of much more use, each in his own domain, than, in that of Pomona, the old women who tie cherries upon sticks, for the more convenient portableness of the same.
To cultivate well, and choose well, your cherries, is of some importance; but if they can be had in their own wild way of clustering about their crabbed stalk, it is a better connection for them than any other; and, if they cannot, then, so that they be not bruised, it makes to a boy of a practical disposition not much difference whether he gets them by handfuls, or in beaded symmetry on the exalting stick.
I purpose, therefore, henceforward to trouble myself little with sticks or twine, but to arrange my chapters with a view to convenient reference, rather than to any careful division of subjects, and to follow out, in any by-ways that may open, on right hand or left, whatever question it seems useful at any moment to settle.
And, in the outset, I find myself met by one which I ought to have touched upon before—one of especial interest in the present state of the Arts.
I have said that the art is greatest which includes the greatest ideas; but I have not endeavoured to define the nature of this greatness in the ideas themselves. We speak of great truths, of great beauties, great thoughts.
What is it which makes one truth greater than another, one thought greater than another? This question is, I repeat, of peculiar importance at the present time; for, during a period now of some hundred and fifty years, all writers on Art who have pretended to eminence, have insisted much on a supposed distinction between what they call the Great and the Low Schools; using the terms "High Art," "Great or Ideal Style," and other such, as descriptive of a certain noble manner of painting, which it was desirable that all students of Art should be early led to reverence and adopt; and characterizing as "vulgar," or "low," or "realist," another manner of painting and conceiving, which it was equally necessary that all students should be taught to avoid.
But lately this established teaching, never very intelligible, has been gravely called in question. The advocates and self-supposed practisers of "High Art" are beginning to be looked upon with doubt, and their peculiar phraseology to be treated with even a certain degree of ridicule.
And other forms of Art are partly developed among us, which do not pretend to be high, but rather to be strong, healthy, and humble. This matter of "highness" in Art, therefore, deserves our most careful consideration.
Has it been, or is it, a true highness, a true princeliness, or only a show of it, consisting in courtly manners and robes of state? Is it rocky height or cloudy height, adamant or vapour, on which the sun of praise so long has risen and set? It will be well at once to consider this. And first, let us get, as quickly as may be, at the exact meaning with which the advocates of "High Art" use that somewhat obscure and figurative term.
I do not know that the principles in question are anywhere more distinctly expressed than in two papers in the Idler , written by Sir Joshua Reynolds, of course under the immediate sanction of Johnson; and which may thus be considered as the utterance of the views then held upon the subject by the artists of chief skill, and critics of most sense, arranged in a form so brief and clear as to admit of their being brought before the public for a morning's entertainment.
I cannot, therefore, it seems to me, do better than quote these two letters, or at least the important parts of them, examining the exact meaning of each passage as it occurs. There are, in all, in the Idler three letters on painting, Nos. Imitate nature is the invariable rule; but I know none who have explained in what manner this rule is to be understood; the consequence of which is, that everyone takes it in the most obvious sense—that objects are represented naturally, when they have such relief that they seem real.
It may appear strange, perhaps, to hear this sense of the rule disputed; but it must be considered, that, if the excellency of a Painter consisted only in this kind of imitation, Painting must lose its rank, and be no longer considered as a liberal art, and sister to Poetry: this imitation being merely mechanical, in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best; for the Painter of genius cannot stoop to drudgery, in which the understanding has no part; and what pretence has the Art to claim kindred with Poetry but by its power over the imagination?
To this power the Painter of genius directs him; in this sense he studies Nature, and often arrives at his end, even by being unnatural in the confined sense of the word. Poetical ornaments destroy that air of truth and plainness which ought to characterize History; but the very being of Poetry consists in departing from this plain narrative, and adopting every ornament that will warm the imagination.
We find, first, from this interesting passage, that the writer considers the Dutch and Italian masters as severally representative of the low and high schools; next, that he considers the Dutch painters as excelling in a mechanical imitation, "in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best"; and, thirdly, that he considers the Italian painters as excelling in a style which corresponds to that of imaginative poetry in literature, and which has an exclusive right to be called the grand style.
I wish that it were in my power entirely to concur with the writer, and to enforce this opinion thus distinctly stated. I have never been a zealous partisan of the Dutch School, and should rejoice in claiming Reynolds's authority for the assertion, that their manner was one "in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best.
First, I say, we must observe Reynolds's exact meaning, for though the assertion may at first appear singular a man who uses accurate language is always more liable to misinterpretation than one who is careless in his expressions. We may assume that the latter means very nearly what we at first suppose him to mean, for words which have been uttered without thought may be received without examination. But when a writer or speaker may be fairly supposed to have considered his expressions carefully, and, after having revolved a number of terms in his mind, to have chosen the one which exactly means the thing he intends to say, we may be assured that what costs him time to select, will require from us time to understand, and that we shall do him wrong, unless we pause to reflect how the word which he has actually employed differs from other words which it seems he might have employed.
It thus constantly happens that persons themselves unaccustomed to think clearly, or speak correctly, misunderstand a logical and careful writer, and are actually in more danger of being misled by language which is measured and precise, than by that which is loose and inaccurate. Now, in the instance before us, a person not accustomed to good writing might very rashly conclude that when Reynolds spoke of the Dutch School as one "in which the slowest intellect was sure to succeed best," he meant to say that every successful Dutch painter was a fool.
We have no right to take his assertion in that sense. He says, the slowest intellect. We have no right to assume that he meant the weakest. For it is true, that in order to succeed in the Dutch style, a man has need of qualities of mind eminently deliberate and sustained. He must be possessed of patience rather than of power; and must feel no weariness in contemplating the expression of a single thought for several months together. As opposed to the changeful energies of the imagination, these mental characters may be properly spoken of as under the general term—slowness of intellect.
But it by no means follows that they are necessarily those of weak or foolish men. We observe, however, farther, that the imitation which Reynolds supposes to be characteristic of the Dutch School is that which gives to objects such relief that they seem real, and that he then speaks of this art of realistic imitation as corresponding to history in literature.
Reynolds, therefore, seems to class these dull works of the Dutch School under a general head, to which they are not commonly referred—that of historical painting; while he speaks of the works of the Italian School not as historical, but as poetical painting. His next sentence will farther manifest his meaning. The attention to these petty peculiarities is the very cause of this naturalness so much admired in the Dutch pictures, which, if we suppose it to be a beauty, is certainly of a lower order, which ought to give place to a beauty of a superior kind, since one cannot be obtained but by departing from the other.
His works may be said to be all genius and soul; and why should they be loaded with heavy matter, which can only counteract his purpose by retarding the progress of the imagination? Examining carefully this and the preceding passage, we find the author's unmistakable meaning to be, that Dutch painting is history ; attending to literal truth and "minute exactness in the details of nature modified by accident. This being then indisputably what Reynolds means to tell us, let us think a little whether he is in all respects right.
And first, as he compares his two kinds of painting to history and poetry, let us see how poetry and history themselves differ, in their use of variable and invariable details. I am writing at a window which commands a view of the head of the Lake of Geneva; and as I look up from my paper, to consider this point, I see, beyond it, a blue breadth of softly moving water, and the outline of the mountains above Chillon, bathed in morning mist.
The first verses which naturally come into my mind are—. It is distinguished from a truly historical statement, first, in being simply false. The water under the Castle of Chillon is not a thousand feet deep, nor anything like it.
Historically stating it, then, we should say: "The lake was sounded from the walls of the Castle of Chillon, and found to be a thousand feet deep. Now, if Reynolds be right in his idea of the difference between history and poetry, we shall find that Byron leaves out of this statement certain un necessary details, and retains only the invariable,—that is to say, the points which the Lake of Geneva and Castle of Chillon have in common with all other lakes and castles.
Here is, at all events, a word added instead of anything being taken away ; invariable, certainly in the case of lakes, but not absolutely necessary.
Because deep water is heavy. The word is a good word, but it is assuredly an added detail, and expresses a character, not which the Lake of Geneva has in common with all other lakes, but which it has in distinction from those which are narrow, or shallow. Partly to make up a rhyme; partly to tell us that the waters are forceful as well as massy, and changeful as well as deep.
Observe, a farther addition of details, and of details more or less peculiar to the spot, or, according to Reynolds's definition, of "heavy matter, retarding the progress of the imagination.
Why fathom line? All lines for sounding are not fathom lines. This is an addition of another particular detail, in which the only compliance with Reynolds's requirement is, that there is some chance of its being an inaccurate one. Why snow-white? Because castle battlements are not usually snow-white.
This is another added detail, and a detail quite peculiar to Chillon, and therefore exactly the most striking word in the whole passage. Why battlement? Because all walls have not battlements, and the addition of the term marks the castle to be not merely a prison, but a fortress.
This is a curious result. Instead of finding, as we expected, the poetry distinguished from the history by the omission of details, we find it consist entirely in the addition of details; and instead of being characterized by regard only of the invariable, we find its whole power to consist in the clear expression of what is singular and particular!
The reader may pursue the investigation for himself in other instances. He will find in every case that a poetical is distinguished from a merely historical statement, not by being more vague, but more specific; and it might, therefore, at first appear that our author's comparison should be simply reversed, and that the Dutch School should be called poetical, and the Italian historical. But the term poetical does not appear very applicable to the generality of Dutch painting; and a little reflection will show us, that if the Italians represent only the invariable, they cannot be properly compared even to historians.
For that which is incapable of change has no history, and records which state only the invariable need not be written, and could not be read. It is evident, therefore, that our author has entangled himself in some grave fallacy, by introducing this idea of invariableness as forming a distinction between poetical and historical art.
What the fallacy is, we shall discover as we proceed; but as an invading army should not leave an untaken fortress in its rear, we must not go on with our inquiry into the views of Reynolds until we have settled satisfactorily the question already suggested to us, in what the essence of poetical treatment really consists. For though, as we have seen, it certainly involves the addition of specific details, it cannot be simply that addition which turns the history into poetry.
For it is perfectly possible to add any number of details to a historical statement, and to make it more prosaic with every added word. As, for instance, "The lake was sounded out of a flat-bottomed boat, near the crab-tree at the corner of the kitchen-garden, and was found to be a thousand feet nine inches deep, with a muddy bottom. It seems to me, and may seem to the reader, strange that we should need to ask the question, "What is poetry? What is more singular, I do not at present recollect hearing the question often asked, though surely it is a very natural one; and I never recollect hearing it answered, or even attempted to be answered.
In general, people shelter themselves under metaphors, and while we hear poetry described as an utterance of the soul, an effusion of Divinity, or voice of nature, or in other terms equally elevated and obscure, we never attain anything like a definite explanation of the character which actually distinguishes it from prose.
I come, after some embarrassment, to the conclusion, that poetry is "the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions. These passions in their various combinations constitute what is called "poetical feeling," when they are felt on noble grounds, that is, on great and true grounds.
Indignation, for instance, is a poetical feeling, if excited by serious injury; but it is not a poetical feeling if entertained on being cheated out of a small sum of money. It is very possible the manner of the cheat may have been such as to justify considerable indignation; but the feeling is nevertheless not poetical unless the grounds of it be large as well as just.
In like manner, energetic admiration may be excited in certain minds by a display of fireworks, or a street of handsome shops; but the feeling is not poetical, because the grounds of it are false, and therefore ignoble.
There is in reality nothing to deserve admiration either in the firing of packets of gunpowder, or in the display of the stocks of warehouses. But admiration excited by the budding of a flower is a poetical feeling, because it is impossible that this manifestation of spiritual power and vital beauty can ever be enough admired.
Farther, it is necessary to the existence of poetry that the grounds of these feelings should be furnished by the imagination.
Poetical feeling, that is to say, mere noble emotion, is not poetry. It is happily inherent in all human nature deserving the name, and is found often to be purest in the least sophisticated. But the power of assembling, by the help of the imagination , such images as will excite these feelings, is the power of the poet or literally of the "Maker. Now this power of exciting the emotions depends of course on the richness of the imagination, and on its choice of those images which, in combination, will be most effective, or, for the particular work to be done, most fit.
And it is altogether impossible for a writer not endowed with invention to conceive what tools a true poet will make use of, or in what way he will apply them, or what unexpected results he will bring out by them; so that it is vain to say that the details of poetry ought to possess, or ever do possess, any definite character. Generally speaking, poetry runs into finer and more delicate details than prose; but the details are not poetical because they are more delicate, but because they are employed so as to bring out an affecting result.
For instance, no one but a true poet would have thought of exciting our pity for a bereaved father by describing his way of locking the door of his house:. In like manner, in painting, it is altogether impossible to say beforehand what details a great painter may make poetical by his use of them to excite noble emotions: and we shall, therefore, find presently that a painting is to be classed in the great or inferior schools, not according to the kind of details which it represents, but according to the uses for which it employs them.
It is only farther to be noticed, that infinite confusion has been introduced into this subject by the careless and illogical custom of opposing painting to poetry, instead of regarding poetry as consisting in a noble use, whether of colours or words. Painting is properly to be opposed to speaking or writing , but not to poetry.
Both painting and speaking are methods of expression. Poetry is the employment of either for the noblest purposes. There may, perhaps, be too great indulgence as well as too great a restraint of imagination; if the one produces incoherent monsters, the other produces what is full as bad, lifeless insipidity. An intimate knowledge of the passions, and good sense, but not common sense, must at last determine its limits. It has been thought, and I believe with reason, that Michael Angelo sometimes transgressed those limits; and, I think, I have seen figures of him of which it was very difficult to determine whether they were in the highest degree sublime or extremely ridiculous.
Such faults may be said to be the ebullitions of genius; but at least he had this merit, that he never was insipid; and whatever passion his works may excite, they will always escape contempt. Other kinds may admit of this naturalness, which of the lowest kind is the chief merit; but in painting, as in poetry, the highest style has the least of common nature. From this passage we gather three important indications of the supposed nature of the Great Style. That it is the work of men in a state of enthusiasm.
That it is like the writing of Homer; and that it has as little as possible of "common nature" in it. First, it is produced by men in a state of enthusiasm. That is, by men who feel strongly and nobly ; for we do not call a strong feeling of envy, jealousy, or ambition, enthusiasm.
That is, therefore, by men who feel poetically. This much we may admit, I think, with perfect safety. Great art is produced by men who feel acutely and nobly; and it is in some sort an expression of this personal feeling. We can easily conceive that there may be a sufficiently marked distinction between such art, and that which is produced by men who do not feel at all, but who reproduce, though ever so accurately, yet coldly, like human mirrors, the scenes which pass before their eyes.
Secondly, Great Art is like the writing of Homer, and this chiefly because it has little of "common nature" in it. We are not clearly informed what is meant by common nature in this passage. Homer seems to describe a great deal of what is common:—cookery, for instance, very carefully in all its processes.
We gather then on the whole, that a painter in the Great Style must be enthusiastic, or full of emotion, and must paint the human form in its utmost strength and beauty, and perhaps certain impossible forms besides, liable by persons not in an equally enthusiastic state of mind to be looked upon as in some degree absurd.
This I presume to be Reynolds's meaning, and to be all that he intends us to gather from his comparison of the Great Style with the writings of Homer.
But if that comparison be a just one in all respects, surely two other corollaries ought to be drawn from it, namely,—first, that these Heroic or Impossible images are to be mingled with others very unheroic and very possible; and, secondly, that in the representation of the Heroic or Impossible forms, the greatest care must be taken in finishing the details , so that a painter must not be satisfied with painting well the countenance and the body of his hero, but ought to spend the greatest part of his time as Homer the greatest number of verses in elaborating the sculptured pattern on his shield.
The Italians seem to have been continually declining in this respect, from the time of Michael Angelo to that of Carlo Maratti, [44] and from thence to the very bathos of insipidity to which they are now sunk; so that there is no need of remarking, that where I mentioned the Italian painters in opposition to the Dutch, I mean not the moderns, but the heads of the old Roman and Bolognian schools; nor did I mean to include, in my idea of an Italian painter, the Venetian school, which may be said to be the Dutch part of the Italian genius.
I have only to add a word of advice to the Painters,—that, however excellent they may be in painting naturally, they would not flatter themselves very much upon it; and to the Connoisseurs, that when they see a cat or a fiddle painted so finely, that, as the phrase is, it looks as if you could take it up, they would not for that reason immediately compare the Painter to Raffaelle and Michael Angelo.
In this passage there are four points chiefly to be remarked. The first, that in the year the Italian painters were, in our author's opinion, sunk in the very bathos of insipidity. The second, that the Venetian painters, i. Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese, are, in our author's opinion, to be classed with the Dutch; that is to say, are painters in a style "in which the slowest intellect is always sure to succeed best.
And, finally, that connoisseurs, seeing a cat or a fiddle successfully painted, ought not therefore immediately to compare the painter to Raphael or Michael Angelo.
Yet Raphael painted fiddles very carefully in the foreground of his St. Cecilia,—so carefully, that they quite look as if they might be taken up. So carefully, that I never yet looked at the picture without wishing that somebody would take them up, and out of the way.
And I am under a very strong persuasion that Raphael did not think painting "naturally" an easy thing. It will be well to examine into this point a little; and for the present, with the reader's permission, we will pass over the first two statements in this passage touching the character of Italian art in , and of Venetian art in general , and immediately examine some of the evidence existing as to the real dignity of "natural" painting—that is to say, of painting carried to the point at which it reaches a deceptive appearance of reality.
In the outset of this inquiry, the reader must thoroughly understand that we are not now considering what is to be painted, but how far it is to be painted.
Not whether Raphael does right in representing angels playing upon violins, or whether Veronese does right in allowing cats and monkeys to join the company of kings: but whether, supposing the subjects rightly chosen, they ought on the canvas to look like real angels with real violins, and substantial cats looking at veritable kings; or only like imaginary angels with soundless violins, ideal cats, and unsubstantial kings.
Now, from the first moment when painting began to be a subject of literary inquiry and general criticism, I cannot remember any writer, not professedly artistical, who has not, more or less, in one part of his book or another, countenanced the idea that the great end of art is to produce a deceptive resemblance of reality. It may be, indeed, that we shall find the writers, through many pages, explaining principles of ideal beauty, and professing great delight in the evidences of imagination.
But whenever a picture is to be definitely described,—whenever the writer desires to convey to others some impression of an extraordinary excellence, all praise is wound up with some such statements as these: "It was so exquisitely painted that you expected the figures to move and speak; you approached the flowers to enjoy their smell, and stretched your hand towards the fruit which had fallen from the branches.
You shrunk back lest the sword of the warrior should indeed descend, and turned away your head that you might not witness the agonies of the expiring martyr. In a large number of instances, language such as this will be found to be merely a clumsy effort to convey to others a sense of the admiration, of which the writer does not understand the real cause in himself. A person is attracted to a picture by the beauty of its colour, interested by the liveliness of its story, and touched by certain countenances or details which remind him of friends whom he loved, or scenes in which he delighted.
He naturally supposes that what gives him so much pleasure must be a notable example of the painter's skill; but he is ashamed to confess, or perhaps does not know, that he is so much a child as to be fond of bright colours and amusing incidents; and he is quite unconscious of the associations which have so secret and inevitable a power over his heart. He casts about for the cause of his delight, and can discover no other than that he thought the picture like reality. In another, perhaps, a still larger number of cases, such language will be found to be that of simple ignorance—the ignorance of persons whose position in life compels them to speak of art, without having any real enjoyment of it.
It is inexcusably required from people of the world, that they should see merit in Claudes [45] and Titians; and the only merit which many persons can either see or conceive in them is, that they must be "like nature.
In other cases, the deceptive power of the art is really felt to be a source of interest and amusement. This is the case with a large number of the collectors of Dutch pictures. They enjoy seeing what is flat made to look round, exactly as a child enjoys a trick of legerdemain: they rejoice in flies which the spectator vainly attempts to brush away, [46] and in dew which he endeavours to dry by putting the picture in the sun.
They take it for the greatest compliment to their treasures that they should be mistaken for windows; and think the parting of Abraham and Hagar adequately represented if Hagar seems to be really crying.
It is against critics and connoisseurs of this latter stamp of whom, in the year , the juries of art were for the most part composed that the essay of Reynolds, which we have been examining, was justly directed. Right: flat-earther's physics. Still, one could save the hypothesis by assuming that light refracts in a peculiar way.
Modern flat-earthers do indeed assume that refraction is at work. They attribute the disappearance of the ships over the horizon to a refraction effect, and even point out that with some atmospheric conditions, ships, icebergs, and distant mountains have been observed to rise above the horizon, and even turn upside down! The diagram at the right shows how this works.
The angle that the rays strike the earth's surface is correct, matching the left diagram. To complete their path from the sun to the earth the rays must curve to strike the earth at the correct observed angle. Of course this result can be obtained in various ways. The curvature could be confined to the region near the earth, even within the atmosphere. The diagram shows circular arcs, but other shapes might be used as well. How airplanes and earth satellites orbit around a flat earth.
And what about airliners going around the earth? What about earth satellites? They are merely traveling in loop orbits. What makes them do this? Johnson doesn't say. Flat-earthers shun any form of gravitational force. They consider gravity to be a mystical or occult idea.
What about the moon flights and the pictures from space showing a round earth? Johnson wasn't about to be taken in by such nonsense. It's all a hoax, he proclaimed, an elaborate movie production written by Arthur C. Clarke, filmed on Hollywood sound stages and the Mohave desert. Johnson says his mission is to restore sanity to the world. He was proud that the United Nations accepts his idea, for they put a map of his flat earth on their flag.
Who could be perverse enough to deny one's senses by doubting it? Johnson also cited the testimony of his wife Marjory, who came from Australia. She sailed a ship over here, and she did not get on it upside down and she did not sail straight up. She sailed right straight across the ocean. We consider that a very important proof that the world is flat," Johnson says.
United Nations Flag. A flat world order. Johnson claimed his flat earth society had members worldwide, but admits some haven't kept up their dues. The society was always struggling financially. There were probably less than hard core members. By now you may be thinking that this is an elaborate joke. Not so. Read a few issues of his newspaper, and you will see that he is deadly serious.
He put out the newspaper at a financial loss, and lived with his wife in isolation and poverty at the edge of the Mohave desert. He was quite sincere, and indignant at those who would make a joke of the flat earth idea.
Ferrari taught in the philosophy department of St. Thomas University. I'll give you a few gems from his promotional brochure:. The cover of his brochure says "We're on the level. There he gazed over the edge into the 'abysmal chasm'.
Flyer of The Flat Earth Society. Leo Ferrari, Canada. I do not know to what extent Ferrari's efforts were parody. But since the internet has made it so easy for people to reach a worldwide audience, several websites of flat earth organizations have appeard, almost certainly intended as satire.
Much has changed since I wrote the above account. Bob Shadewald brought me up to date, by supplying the following information. In late September , the Johnsons' home caught fire. Having no fire insurance, the Johnsons were unable to rebuild. A dilapidated old house trailer, bought as a storage shed, survived the fire, and they took refuge there. A few months later, Marjory fell and broke a hip. She survived hip replacement surgery but never recovered her strength.
On May 16, , she died. Charles Johnson immersed himself in rebuilding the membership roster. Publication of the Flat Earth News , in hiatus since , was to resume with the December issue. But I have no confirmation that it did. Charles Johnson died in I hear rumors that some efforts have been made to find a new leader to revive the organization, but I've seen no evidence that it has happened.
I still would like to see a debate between hollow earthers and flat earthers on the subject of the shape of the earth. It would, I think, demonstrate how alike they are in the methods they use to support their belief, and how they can use misinterpreted data and flawed arguments to arrive at mutually contradictory conclusions.
Sources: Cohen, Daniel. Cook, Philip. John Alexander Dowie's Theocracy. Zion Historical Society publication, Series 2. Life and Work of John Alexander Dowie. Collier's, May 11, DeFord, Charles S. A reparation: universal gravitation a universal fake. Fairfield, Wash. D44 Reprint of the 3d ed. Fiske, John.
A Century of Science and Other Essays. Houghton, Mifflin, It discusses, among other things, the history of flat and hollow earth theories. Flat Earth News. International Flat Earth Research Society. Gardner, Martin. G35 Garwood, Christine. Macmillian, Gates, David, with Jennifer Smith. Gleason, Alex. Is the Bible from heaven?
Is the earth a globe? Buffalo, N. G56 Kneitel, Tom. Popular Communications , June Johnson, William J. Leaves of Healing. A guide to the independent thinkers.
M66 Pfarr, Jerry. Reinders, Robert C. XXX, 1, p. Earth not a globe. By "Parallax" [pseud. London, Day, An account of the 'Old Bedford Canal' challenge in which naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and flat-earther John Hampden measured the flatness of the water surface.
Schadewald, Robert. Moon Landings? A fraud! Says This Prophet. Science Digest, July , p. Web copy. New York: Harmony Books, , Taylor, Jabez. Zion Historical Society, Shiloh House. Part 1, Summer? Part 2. Fall, Wallace, Irving. The Square Pegs. Alfred A. Knopf, Chapter 1. In Defense of the Square Peg.
Williams, Marjorie I. John Alexander Dowie. Thesis, Rosary College, July By Rectangle [pseud. Durban, Natal, T. Cullingworth, W77 First published in 46 p. This document is a work in progress. Consider it a first or rough draft. Later versions will have more specific references and footnotes.
Samuel Shenton, illustrating earth's flatness. So Johnson became president of the Flat Earth Society in and 'inherited' a large portion of Shenton's valuable library of books on flat earth history.
Its masthead declares its purpose: 'Restoring the World to Sanity. Charles Johnson. Johnson used Biblical authority to assert that the earth is a flat disk with the North pole at the center and a wall of ice in the Antarctic regions, surrounding the whole perimeter of the earth disk.
In his universe the sun and moon were about 32 miles in diameter and only miles away. They, too are flat disks. The stars are a mere miles away. Where did Johnson get these figures? You won't find the calculations in his newspaper. They may have originated with Carpenter and Robotham in England, and are accepted without question as authoritative by flat-earthers today.
One can reconstruct the origin of these numbers by doing a little geometry, starting from a flat earth hypothesis. Remember the experiment of Eratosthenes, who measured the angular elevation of the sun at two latitudes in Egypt?
He assumed that the sun was effectively infinitely far away or at least so far compared to the earth's size that the actual distance didn't matter.
Then he calculated the diameter of the earth using a second assumption: that the earth was spherical. But suppose you abandon Eratosthenes' two assumptions, and adopt instead the assumption that the earth is flat. Then, triangulation from the same data gives the distance to the sun: miles! See how a simple change of assumptions can drastically alter the entire cosmos?
However, the round earth was more than an arbitary assumption for Eratosthenes, for he and his contemporaries, had other very good reasons for knowing the earth was round. It was not, it was only intended to measure the size of the sphere. Distance of sun from a flat earth, using Eratosthenes' method. Finally, the angular size of the sun is 0. Using this fact with a distance to the sun of miles, gives the sun's diameter: 32 miles. It therefore appears that the flat-earther's figures are based on sun elevation data at just two particular latitudes, perhaps even Eratosthenes' values.
I speculate that flat earthers may have picked these out of some book, and when the calculation was finished, they looked no further. For if they had done the calculation with a variety of latitudes, including large latitude differences, conflicting results would have been obtained. But when larger baselines are used, the triangulation gives a much smaller distance to the sun. How light refracts near the earth.
Left: conventional physics. Right: flat-earther's physics. Still, one could save the hypothesis by assuming that light refracts in a peculiar way. Modern flat-earthers do indeed assume that refraction is at work. They attribute the disappearance of the ships over the horizon to a refraction effect, and even point out that with some atmospheric conditions, ships, icebergs, and distant mountains have been observed to rise above the horizon, and even turn upside down!
The diagram at the right shows how this works. The angle that the rays strike the earth's surface is correct, matching the left diagram. To complete their path from the sun to the earth the rays must curve to strike the earth at the correct observed angle. Of course this result can be obtained in various ways. The curvature could be confined to the region near the earth, even within the atmosphere. The diagram shows circular arcs, but other shapes might be used as well.
How airplanes and earth satellites orbit around a flat earth. And what about airliners going around the earth? What about earth satellites? They are merely traveling in loop orbits. What makes them do this? Johnson doesn't say. Flat-earthers shun any form of gravitational force. They consider gravity to be a mystical or occult idea. What about the moon flights and the pictures from space showing a round earth? Johnson wasn't about to be taken in by such nonsense.
It's all a hoax, he proclaimed, an elaborate movie production written by Arthur C. Clarke, filmed on Hollywood sound stages and the Mohave desert. Johnson says his mission is to restore sanity to the world. He was proud that the United Nations accepts his idea, for they put a map of his flat earth on their flag. Who could be perverse enough to deny one's senses by doubting it? Johnson also cited the testimony of his wife Marjory, who came from Australia. She sailed a ship over here, and she did not get on it upside down and she did not sail straight up.
She sailed right straight across the ocean. We consider that a very important proof that the world is flat," Johnson says. United Nations Flag. A flat world order. Johnson claimed his flat earth society had members worldwide, but admits some haven't kept up their dues.
The society was always struggling financially. There were probably less than hard core members. By now you may be thinking that this is an elaborate joke. Not so. Read a few issues of his newspaper, and you will see that he is deadly serious. He put out the newspaper at a financial loss, and lived with his wife in isolation and poverty at the edge of the Mohave desert.
He was quite sincere, and indignant at those who would make a joke of the flat earth idea. Ferrari taught in the philosophy department of St. Thomas University. I'll give you a few gems from his promotional brochure:. The cover of his brochure says "We're on the level. There he gazed over the edge into the 'abysmal chasm'. Flyer of The Flat Earth Society. Leo Ferrari, Canada. I do not know to what extent Ferrari's efforts were parody. But since the internet has made it so easy for people to reach a worldwide audience, several websites of flat earth organizations have appeard, almost certainly intended as satire.
Much has changed since I wrote the above account. Bob Shadewald brought me up to date, by supplying the following information. In late September , the Johnsons' home caught fire. Having no fire insurance, the Johnsons were unable to rebuild. A dilapidated old house trailer, bought as a storage shed, survived the fire, and they took refuge there. A few months later, Marjory fell and broke a hip. She survived hip replacement surgery but never recovered her strength.
On May 16, , she died. Charles Johnson immersed himself in rebuilding the membership roster. Publication of the Flat Earth News , in hiatus since , was to resume with the December issue. But I have no confirmation that it did. Charles Johnson died in I hear rumors that some efforts have been made to find a new leader to revive the organization, but I've seen no evidence that it has happened. I still would like to see a debate between hollow earthers and flat earthers on the subject of the shape of the earth.
It would, I think, demonstrate how alike they are in the methods they use to support their belief, and how they can use misinterpreted data and flawed arguments to arrive at mutually contradictory conclusions. Sources: Cohen, Daniel. Cook, Philip.
John Alexander Dowie's Theocracy. Zion Historical Society publication, Series 2. Life and Work of John Alexander Dowie. Collier's, May 11, DeFord, Charles S. A reparation: universal gravitation a universal fake. Fairfield, Wash. D44 Reprint of the 3d ed. Fiske, John. A Century of Science and Other Essays. Houghton, Mifflin, It discusses, among other things, the history of flat and hollow earth theories. Flat Earth News. International Flat Earth Research Society. Gardner, Martin. G35 Garwood, Christine.
Macmillian, Gates, David, with Jennifer Smith. Gleason, Alex. Is the Bible from heaven? Is the earth a globe? Buffalo, N. G56 Kneitel, Tom. Popular Communications , June Johnson, William J. Leaves of Healing. A guide to the independent thinkers. M66 Pfarr, Jerry. Reinders, Robert C. XXX, 1, p. Earth not a globe.
By "Parallax" [pseud. London, Day,
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