334 Baron Cuvier's Lectures on the Natural Sciences. 



to prove the falsity of the tlicory of which we speak. The 

 Indians boast of possessing a long scries of observations, which 

 go back to the year 4000 before Christ, a period at whicli, ac- 

 cording to them, there was a conjunction of all the planets. If 

 they have actually observed this conjunction, we can, by means 

 of calculation, confirm its reality. This it has been attempted 

 to do. Now, it has been found that this conjunction did not 

 exist; and it has been moreover discovered, that if, in the re- 

 trograde calculation, in place of making use of the correct for- 

 mulae which we now possess, we were to employ the defective 

 formulas of the Indians, he would arrive at an erroneous result, 

 but at one which, for the epoch indicated, would give the ap- 

 pearance of a conjunction. 



There results from these facts, and several others, which we 

 owe to the researches of an English philosopher, that the an- 

 cient Indians had neither an astronomy of any degree of ad- 

 vancement, nor a regular geometry. As to the natural sciences, 

 they must have possessed some slight knowledge of them, as 

 their commerce, which was very flourishing, made a great va- 

 riety of substances pass through their hands ; but these sciences 

 never made any considerable progress among them. Their be- 

 ing prevented from touching dead bodies, and the horror which 

 they had of skins, must have placed an insurmountable l)arrier 

 in their way. In short, all that the Indians could have commu- 

 nicated to the Egyptians, was their metaphysics, their mytho- 

 logy, and their constitution. 



Lecture Third — Egypt. 



Egypt presented circumstances highly favourable to the de- 

 velopment of the sciences, of which it had received from India 

 only an imperfect germ. From the extreme fcrtiHty of its ter- 

 ritory, the inhabitants had abundant leisure to devote to study, 

 and being condemned to inactivity during the time the river 

 kept them pent up in their towns, they could not fail to be in- 

 clined to meditation. 



The inundation itself, by giving the Egyptians wants un- 

 known to other nations, induced an activity of mind, and led 

 them to a multitude of useful discoveries. The necessity of re- 

 tracing the boundaries of properties, after the river had retired 



