SEYFFAKTH — ON THE THEORY OF THE MOON S MOTIONS. 5II 



quo, of all former Lunar Tables ; the latter were artificially 

 harmonized with the former ; Hansen, and all other authors of 

 Lunar Tables, put, for the epoch — Soo, the moon, the Apogee, 

 and the Nodes of the moon in the same degrees of the Zodiac 

 presumed by Ptolemy, in order to obtain the same eclipses spe- 

 cified in the Almagest. Therefore, whenever we recalculate 

 Ptolemy's eclipses, our Tables will necessarily, as a matter of 

 course, represent them in conformity to the Almagest. Instead 

 of referring the Babylonian eclipses to the same years, days, and 

 houi'S, as Ptolemy did, the previous question ought to have been 

 answered, whether or not Ptolemy's Historical Canon is true, and 

 whether or not all other, or at least the most decisive Greek and 

 Roman eclipses, agree with Ptolemy's theory of the moon's mo- 

 tions. Let us take an example for illustration. The learned 

 Kircher, 200 years ago, translated entire Obelisks containing the 

 usual 600 hieroglyphs : he assigned, distinctively, to each figure 

 a word, ideologically expressed, and thus the first Hieroglyphic 

 Dictionary was produced. Many years after, another Egyptolo- 

 gist translates the same inscriptions by the aid of Kircher's 

 Dictionary, when lo ! the same words and contents come out. 

 Consequently, says he, Kircher's Hieroglyphic System must be 

 right. In this vicious circle the entire evidence is involved. The 

 previous critical inquiry ought to have been whether other hiero- 

 glyphic inscriptions, being interpreted by the said theory, yield a 

 logical sense, or not. And thus, in reference to the moon's theory, 

 adopted in all lunar Tables, the principal inquiry ought to have 

 been, whether the theory of our satellite, derived from the Alma- 

 gest, agrees with the Greek and Roman eclipses, or not. This 

 conclusio in circulo, then, proves nothing. 



2. It is a matter of indifference to what years, and days, and 

 hours, the Greek, Roman, and other ancient historians referred 

 their eclipses : the dates of ancient eclipses are to be determined 

 a priori by means of the Lunar Tables alone. This was the 

 position of Ptolemy and of his numberless followers, and yet it 

 w r ill meet with the approbation of no scrupulous historian. 

 History has its inviolable rights. The historians of the Greeks, 

 Romans, Hebrews, etc., were honest and intelligent men, being 

 both able and willing to tell the truth ; and hence their reports, 

 founded on actual personal observation, or on the testimony of 



