312 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. ijo 94,^ Oct. 17, '57. 



visible ; tliat all things are preserved in harmony 

 by the law of necessity ; and that the world is 

 liable to destruction, both by fire and water. It 

 is needless to say that we have all these doctrines 

 at second-hand, and that the various sources 

 differ in important particulai's — some making the 

 sun a centre, according to the views of inter- 

 preters. 



Such are the leading points of this philosopher's 

 astronomy. To assert that " in astronomy he 

 taught tlie system adopted at this day " — as is 

 stated in some of the books — is clearly not war- 

 ranted by the evidence supplied by his disciples. 

 The i'ew points of resemblance do not lead to the 

 general inference. If the modern Egyptians play 

 on a single string, shall we therefore conclude that 

 they must be Paganinis ? But this must not de- 

 tract from the merit of Pythagoras, his School, or 

 its teachers the Priests of Egypt, the Chaldeans, 

 the Brahmins, or whatever source is alleged 

 ■whence he and his followers derived their know- 

 ledge. All knowledge is cumulative. Each age 

 is a debtor to that which precedes it in the march 

 of the human intellect. If the mere schoolboy of 

 the present day might enlighten even Aristotle on 

 many a point, it is nevertheless certain that the 

 same boy's enlightenment must be traced up to 

 the contributions of Aristotle to the mind of the 

 boy's instructors. • 



The merit of Pythagoras, as an astronomer, 

 consists in having introduced among the Greeks 

 (concerning the nature, the form, the dimensions 

 of the earth and the heavenly bodies and their 

 movements) notions merely elementary indeed, 

 but plausible and I'easonable — notions which 

 superseded the absurd systems then in vogue — 

 although they were subsequently obscured and 

 mystified by Plato. It was a system of astronomy 

 sufficiently simple and coherent to guide observa- 

 tion and to connect its results ; in fine, it pro- 

 claimed the absolute necessity of applying to 

 astronomy the utmost rigour of mathematical cal- 

 culation, and insisted upon bringing the aid of 

 geometry and arithmetic to the investigation and 

 generalisation of the celestial phenomena. Nor 

 must we forget the beautiful originality of the 

 Pythagorean doctrine in the intimate relation 

 which it established between the harmony of 

 music, the harmony of the spheres, and the liar- 

 mony of the soul — meaning thereby that Virtue 

 or Uprightness in which true happiness consists. 



The discovery of the ultra-zodiacal planets be- 

 tween Jupiter and Mars was the result of modern 

 scientific induction. After twenty-four years' 

 hard study, . Kepler announced his celebrated 

 " laws," one of which now goes under the name of 

 Bode's law — namely, that the intervals of the 

 orbits of the planets go on doubling as we recede 

 from the Sun, or nearly so. Thus, the interval be- 

 tween the orbits of the earth and Venus is nearly 



double that between those of Venus and Mercury ; 

 that between the orbits of Mars and the earth 

 nearly double that between the earth and Venus ; 

 and so on. Now, the interval between the orbits 

 of Jupiter and Mars was too great, and formed an 

 exception to this law, which is, however, again re- 

 sumed in the case of the three remoter planets. 

 Professor Bode of Berlin, towards the end of 

 the last century, reproduced Kepler's law, and 

 suggested as a possible surmise that a planet 

 might exist between Mars and Jupiter. And so 

 it came to pass : not one planet — but a multitude 

 of planetary bodies have been discovered, the first 

 in 1801, the last very recently — to the number of 

 forty-five — revolving in orbits tolerably well 

 corresponding with the law in question. 



" Presentient propositions of this nature," says Hum- 

 boldt, " felicitous conjectures of that which was subse- 

 quently discovered, excited general interest, whilst none 

 of Kepler's contemporaries, including Galileo, conferred 

 any adequate praise on the discovery of the three laws, 

 which, since Newton and the promulgation of the theory 

 of gravitation, have immortalised the name of Kepler." — 

 See Enfield, Hist, of Phil. b. ii. c. 12. s. 1. ; Biog. Univ. 

 (Hoefer) art. Bode ; Herschel, Astron. 276. ; Humboldt, 

 Cosmos, ii. 711.; Delambre, Ast. Ancieniie, i. ; Encyc. des 

 Gens du Mondt, Pythag. 



Andrew Steinmetz. 



P.S. Since writing this article I have endea- 

 voured to procure the brochure of J. B. Prevost, 

 but have not succeeded. It is not at the Museum 

 — or rather it is not named in the Catalogues. I 

 venture to suppose that it was one of the many 

 articles published at the time of the discovery of 

 the new planets, and that Prevost indulged in 

 some speculations of his own as to the possibility 

 of Pythagoras having had "a presentiment" of 

 their existence or their equivalent — from his 

 musical theory of the distances. It is impossible 

 that Prevost could have any other ground for the 

 " affirmation " of Mde. De Stael. But this very 

 theory of Pythagoras — as handed down to us — 

 seems to prove the very reverse of such a " pre- 

 sentiment." • He made the distance of the Moon 

 from the Earth one tone ; from the Moon to Mer- 

 cury a tone and semitone ; from Mercury to Venus 

 the same ; from Venus to the Sun a tone and 

 semitone ; from the Sun to Mars a tone ; from 

 Mars to Jupiter a semitone ; from Jupiter to Sa- 

 turn the same, — in fine, from Saturn to the 

 Sphere of the Stars a tone and semitone — thus 

 making the octave of seven tones or the diapason. 

 As he made only a semitone between Mars and 

 Jupiter, it is evident that he did not even observe 

 the disproportionate distance between those planets. 

 How, then, could he have had a " presentiment " 

 that a planet or planets existed between them ? 

 See Bailly, Hist, de V Astron. Anciemie, a work 

 which exhausts the subject of Astronomy among 

 the Ancients, p. 214. 



