Select the correct text in the passage.
In Great Astronomers, Robert Stawell Ball documents the developments in astronomy from the ancient
nineteenth century. He
begins with a chapter on the life and works of Ptolemy.
Which sentence in this excerpt from Great Astronomers shows that Ptolemy's theory was flawed, but that he was still the undisputed authority
on astronomy for centuries?
The career of the famous man whose name stands at the head of this chapter is one of the most remarkable in the history of human learning.
There may have been other discoverers who have done more for science than ever Ptolemy accomplished, but there never has been any other
discoverer whose authority on the subject of the movements of the heavenly bodies has held sway over the minds of men for so long a period
as the fourteen centuries during which his opinions reigned supreme. The doctrines he laid down in his famous book, "The Almagest" prevailed
throughout those ages. No substantial addition was made in all that time to the undoubted truths which this work contained. No important
correction was made of the serious errors with which Ptolemy's theories were contaminated. The authority of Ptolemy as to all things in the
heavens, and as to a good many things on the earth (for the same illustrious man was also a diligent geographer), was invariably final.
Though every child may now know more of the actual truths of the celestial motions than ever Ptolemy knew. yet the fact that his work
exercised such an astonishing effect on the human intellect for some sixty generations, shows that it must have been an extraordinary
production. We must look into the career of this wonderful man to discover wherein lay the secret of that marvellous success which made him
the unchallenged instructor of the human race for such a protracted period.