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wholly when totally eclipsed. He therefore inferredthat she shines in part by native light. It is some-what singular that he did not perceive the remarkablecontrast which exists between the two kinds of lightwhich he regarded as belonging to the moon. Thedeep ruddy colour of the totally eclipsed moon differsso completely from the ashy pale light of “ the old moonin the new moon's arms,” that one can hardly under-stand how both could be referred to one and the samecause. Nevertheless, there have not been wantingthose who, in comparatively recent times, have main-tained a similar theory.
Anaxagoras (b.c. 500) was the next of the ancientphilosophers who theorized respecting the moon. Welearn from Diogenes Laertius that Anaxagoras regardedthe moon as an inhabited world, and taught that thevarieties of tint perceived on her surface are due tomountains and valleys. He held—and was ridiculedfor holding—the opinion that the moon may be aslarge as the Peloponnesus .
Some of the Pythagorean philosophers, on the con-trary, taught that the moon is a body altogether unlikethe earth. They regarded her as a smooth, crystallinebody, having the power of reflecting light like a mirror ;and they supposed the spots upon her disc to be thereflection of the oceans and continents of our earth.But others believed the moon to be an inhabitedworld like the earth, and since daylight on the mooncontinues for about fifteen terrestrial days, they con-cluded somewhat boldly that the creatures inhabiting