Flinders had concluded that the Terra Australis as hypothesized by Aristotle and Ptolemy did not exist, so he wanted the name applied to what he saw as the next best thing: "Australia".
福林達斯認為，亞里士多德和托勒密所假設的南方大陸並不存在，所以他希望「澳大利亞（Australia）」這個名字適用於他所看到下一個最好的東西。