60. Aristotle tried without success to discover from the poems of Xenophanes whether he regarded the world as finite or infinite. “He made no clear pronouncement on the subject,” he tells us.[300] Theophrastos, on the other hand, decided that he regarded it as spherical and finite because he said it was “equal every way.”[301] This, however, leads to very serious difficulties. We have seen already that Xenophanes said the sun went right on to infinity, and this agrees with his view of the earth as an infinitely extended plain. Still more difficult to reconcile with the idea of a spherical and finite world is the statement of fr. 28 that, while the earth has an upper limit which we see, it has no limit below. This is attested by Aristotle, who speaks of the earth being “infinitely rooted,” and adds that Empedokles criticised Xenophanes for holding this view.[302] It further appears from the fragment of Empedokles quoted by Aristotle that Xenophanes said the vast Air extended infinitely upwards.[303] We are therefore bound to try to find room for an infinite earth and an infinite air in a spherical and finite world! That comes of trying to find science in satire. If, on the other hand, we regard these statements from the same point of view as those about the heavenly bodies, we shall at once see what they most probably mean. The story of Ouranos and Gaia was always the chief scandal of the _Theogony_, and the infinite air gets rid of Ouranos altogether. As to the earth stretching infinitely downwards, that gets rid of Tartaros, which Homer described as situated at the bottommost limit of earth and sea, as far beneath Hades as heaven is above the earth.[304] This is pure conjecture, of course; but, if it is even possible, we are entitled to disbelieve that such startling contradictions occurred in a cosmological poem. Footnote 300: Arist. _Met._ Α, 5. 986 b 23 (R. P. 101), οὐδὲν διεσαφήνισεν. Footnote 301: This is given as an inference by Simpl. _Phys._ p. 23, 18 (R. P. 108 b), διὰ τὸ πανταχόθεν ὅμοιον. It does not merely come from _M.X.G._ (R. P. 108), πάντῃ δ’ ὅμοιον ὄντα σφαιροειδῆ εἶναι. Hippolytos has it too (_Ref._ i. 14; R. P. 102 a), so it goes back to Theophrastos. Timon of Phleious understood Xenophanes in the same way; for he makes him call the One ἴσον ἁπάντῃ (fr. 60, Diels = 40 Wachsm.; R. P. 102 a). Footnote 302: Arist. _de Caelo_, Β, 13. 294 a 21 (R. P. 103 b). Footnote 303: I take δαψιλός as an attribute and ἀπείρονα as predicate to both subjects. Footnote 304: _Il._ viii. 13-16, 478-481, especially the words οὐδ’ εἴ κε τὰ νείατα πείραθ’ ἵκηαι | γαίης καὶ πόντοιο κ.τ.λ. _Iliad_ viii. must have seemed a particularly bad book to Xenophanes.