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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Alexandria and her Schools by Charles Kingsley: astronomic science seemed to awaken suddenly to a true inductive method,
and after him to fall into its old slumber for 300 years. In the
meantime Timocharis, Aristyllus, and Conon had each added their mites to
the discoveries of Eratosthenes: but to Hipparchus we owe that theory
of the heavens, commonly called the Ptolemaic system, which, starting
from the assumption that the earth was the centre of the universe,
attempted to explain the motions of the heavenly bodies by a complex
system of supposed eccentrics and epicycles. This has of course now
vanished before modern discoveries. But its value as a scientific
attempt lies in this: that the method being a correct one, correct
results were obtained, though starting from a false assumption; and
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