statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, gives no false information; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first man.”[156] Though, during the kalifate of Al-Mamoun (A. D. 813–833) Arabic learning had well-nigh demonstrated the globular form of the earth and determined its circumference, according to their measurements, to be about 24,000 miles, still not a man in Christendom ventured to advocate the theory for almost half a dozen centuries, such was the power of the ban put upon investigation which ran counter to the pre-expressed opinions of a dark age. The theories of Tascanelli and the observations of Columbus on the polar star prepared the way for the great triumph achieved by De Gama in 1497–8, in his voyage around the Cape of Good Hope; and the question of the globular form of the earth was forever set at rest twenty-two years afterwards by the voyage of Magellan.[157] When it was definitely determined that America was a continent of itself and not the eastern extremity of India, the fact that it was inhabited gave rise to speculations which have since been often repeated. Through an unaccountable misapprehension, not only the questions of the origin of the Americans, but the manner of their separation from the rest of the race, together with the routes they pursued in reaching the new world—all were thought to be capable of solution by the light of Scripture. The education of the early writers enables us to account for the intolerance with which they looked upon any other solution of the problem than that which alone would conform to the teachings of the church.[158] It is true that the natural nobility of character possessed by such writers as Las Casas, Duran and a few others, tempered the fanaticism which had been inculcated by education, and enabled them to furnish invaluable information concerning the real condition and traditions of the so-called Indians. But, upon the other hand, there were great numbers of blind, unscrupulous ecclesiastics who either destroyed outright the manuscripts and picture-writing of the natives, committing them to the flames, or so warping tradition in order that it might conform to their mistaken theology, that in many cases the most precious information is irretrievably lost. Such men could hardly be expected to have treated calmly and with any degree of liberality the question before us—one which has so often been asked, but as yet never satisfactorily answered, and one which in the present state of knowledge cannot be.[159]