It may be added that the “Geographia Universalis” issue of 1540 is the first to embrace a proper map bearing the name “America,” and that, to the identical account of Columbus which originally appeared in the 1522 and 1525 editions, Servetus appended a few words concerning the absurdity of putting the claims of Americus Vespuccius before those of the real discoverer.[69] The first book in which the name America was formally given to the new Continent is entitled “Globus Mundi,” published 1507–1510, and attributed to Henricus Loritus—de Glaris—Glareanus. The suggestion of the name had, indeed, been made by the geographer Waldseemüller (Martinus Hylacomylus) of Freiburg, in his “Cosmographiæ Introductio,” published at St. Dié, in Lorraine, April 25, 1507, but the “Globus Mundi” was first to put it into effect.
The Waldseemüller suggestion above alluded to is thus translated: “And the fourth part of the world, having been discovered by Americus, it may be called Amerige; that is, the land of Americus, or America.” In 1901, Prof. Jos. Fischer, of Beldkirch, discovered, at Wolfegg Castle in Würtemberg, two huge maps, measuring together eight feet by four and a half feet, which proved to be those of Waldseemüller, of which all trace had been lost for centuries. They were reproduced in London, during the year 1903, and were thus alluded to by one of the writers at the time:
“Ever since Humboldt first called attention to the ‘Cosmographiæ Introductio’ no lost maps have ever been sought for so diligently as those of Waldseemüller. It is not too much to say that the honour of being their lucky discoverer has long been considered as the highest possible prize to be obtained amongst students in the field of ancient cartography. But until the summer of 1901, although many copies of the book are known in various editions, no specimen of either the globe or map has ever been seen or heard of in modern times. Some historians and geographers have even gone so far as to state definitely that they were never issued at all, and the book published alone. Others have held that they never got beyond their manuscript form, while some have contended that they were actually issued with the book, but, being separate, had become lost in the course of time. The writers holding this last view have been brought to their belief by tracing the supposed influence of the St. Dié cartography in later maps, and these authorities have been proved to be right by Prof. Fischer’s discovery. The expectation that the missing map would be found to bear the name of AMERICA on the newly discovered Western Lands has also been duly realized.”
References.—“Le nom d’Amérique et les grandes mappemondes ... de 1507 et 1516,” in “Annales de Géographie,” 15 Janvier 1904, pp. 29–36; “History of North America,” by Alfred Brittin, Philadelphia, 1903, at p. 293, Vol. I of which is a fine reproduction of a sheet from Waldseemüller’s “Cosmographiæ Introductio” published in May 1507, showing the passage that first suggested calling the new world by the name of America; “Martinus Hylacomylus Waltzemüller, ses ouvrages et ses collaborateurs, par un géographe bibliophile” (M. d’Avezac), Paris, 1867; “Geographical Journal,” Vol. XIX. pp. 201–209, 389; Humboldt, “Examen Critique,” Paris, 1836, Vol. I. p. 22; also Vol. IV and Vol. V passim; “Amerigo Vespucci,” Vol. II. pp. 129–179 of Justin Winsor’s “Narrative and Critical History of America,” Boston, 1889. See also the geography and maps of Loritus (Henricus), Glareanus, in the “Geographical Journal” for June 1905; “Le Journal des Savants” for December 1830; April and May 1831; August 1840; October and December 1843; July 1847; Houzeau et Lancaster, “Bibl. Gén.,” Vol. I. part i. pp. 420–424, 684–688, and part. ii. p. 1390; also Vol. II. p. 231.
Puteanus, Guilielmus—Dupuis, and not Dupuy—French physician of the sixteenth century, professor at the University of Grenoble, is the author of “De Medicamentorum,” Lyons, 1552, which was reproduced with a treatise of Cousinot under the title “De Occultis Pharmacorum” two years later. To Puteanus, Gilbert alludes (De Magnete, Book I. chap. i. and Book II. chap. iii.) saying that he discusses the loadstone briefly and crudely and deduces its power, not from a property of its whole substance unknown to any one and incapable of demonstration (as Galen held and, after him, nearly all physicians), but from “its substantial form as from a prime motor and self-motor, and as from its own most potent nature and its natural temperament, as the instrument which the efficient form of its substance, or the second cause, which is without a medium, employs in its operations. So the loadstone attracts iron not without a physical cause, and for the sake of some good.” But nothing like this, adds Gilbert, is done in other bodies by any substantial form unless it be the primary one, and this Puteanus does not recognize.
References.—“Biographie Générale,” Vol. XV. p. 367; Larousse, “Dict. Universel,” Vol. VI. p. 1420.
Pythagoras, celebrated Greek philosopher (569–470 B.C.) who, as Hegel says, “First made thought and not sense the criterion of the essence of things.” He is said to have travelled widely and, according to one of his biographers, he learned geometry from the Egyptians, arithmetic from the Phœnicians, astronomy from the Chaldæans, religious formulæ and ethical maxims from the Magians, and obtained other scientific and religious knowledge from the Arabians and the Indians. He settled finally at Crotona in Lower Italy, during the year 529 B.C. and there established the school that has made him famous.
To a complete exposition of the Pythagorean school or sect, the “Biographie Générale” devotes, in Vol. XLI, twenty-four full columns, whilst the notices of the Pythagoreans which Aristotle gives in the first book of the “Metaphysics” contain about all that is of importance in their theory.
According to the report of Philolaus of Croton, the Pythagoreans taught the progressive movement of the non-rotating Earth, its revolution around the focus of the world (the central fire, hestia), while Plato and Aristotle imagined that the Earth neither rotated nor advanced in space, but that, fixed to one central point, it merely oscillated from one side to the other. Humboldt, from whose “Cosmos” the above is taken, further says that the figurative and poetical myths of the Pythagorean and Platonic pictures of the universe were as changeable as the fancy from which they emanated, and he cites Plato, who, in the Phædrus, adopts the system of Philolaus, whilst, in the Timæus, he accepts the system according to which the earth is immovable in the centre and which was subsequently called the Hipparchian or Ptolemaic.[70]
References.—Ueberweg (Dr. Friedrich), “History of Philosophy,” tr. of Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 42–49; Butler (William Archer), “Lectures on Ancient Philosophy”; Gilbert, De Magnete, Book II. chap. ii., and Book V. chap. xii.; Chas. Rollin, “Ancient History,” London, 1845, Vol. I. pp. 383–384; Iamblichus’ “Life of Pythagoras,” translated from the Greek by Thos. Taylor; “Dict. des Sc. Philos.,” Paris, 1852, Vol. V. pp. 297–312; Ritter (Dr. Heinrich), “History of Ancient Philosophy,” London, 1846, Vol. I. pp. 326–357; Houzeau et Lancaster, “Bibl. Gén.,” Vol. II. p. 232; Roeth (Eduard), “Geschichte,” 1846–1858; Cantor (Moritz), “Geschichte der Mathematik,” Leipzig, 1894, Vol. I. pp. 137–201; Grote (George), “Greece,” Vol. IV. pp. 525–551; Chaignet (Antelme Edouard), “Pythag. et la Phil. Pyth.,” 1873.