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everyone would be better off than they are now,
and each person would have what he needed and
would still remain in a condition to commit many sins [if he wanted]. But they
are not as wise as those who by their senses rediscovered
astronomy, which Ptolemy had not fogotten. For in this he labored,
until he knew and proved the course of the stars in the sky above and
their mystery, as we have spoken about above. So now we will tell
you about the grandeur of the earth and of the sky, of the moon
and the sun, the stars and the planets, which are not things common
to all (sic), as King Ptolemy himself measured them as far as the depths
and proved by reason in a book he compiled called the Almagest,
which is is to say "the high work." So you may hear
what he says about these things, and what many others have
found out about them after he did through his book, where he
offered the skill of proving things by regarding proving [sic - see note].
[rubric:] How high the earth is round about and how thick in the
middle. [/rubric] The ancient philosophers
measured the world in all its parts by