50 Epitome of the Progress of jVatural Sciettce. 



temples of Egypt, and which, it was asserted, contained proofs 

 of a refined cultivation of astronomical science by the Egyptians, 

 at periods that mock our chronologies, have been stripped of 

 their romance. The most authentic notices we have of the ex- 

 istence of astronomical knowledge, do not date beyond the eighth 

 century before Christ. The occultation of the heavenly bodies, 

 we may of course expect to find recorded to some extent, by an- 

 cient nations sufficiently advanced in civilization, to have invent- 

 ed the means of transmitting the memory of great events. The 

 geographical situation of some of those nations was favourable 

 to the introduction of astronomical observation, and some secular 

 periods had been ascertained with sufficient precision, to have in 

 some manner justified the inferences which have been drawn, of 

 a supposed high state of astronomical knowledge. But in those 

 early stages of society, this could have been accomplished only 

 by miraculous interference, for the appropriate means of mea- 

 suring time and space, were not alone wanting ; the applica- 

 tion of terrestrial mechanics to celestial motions, by such means, 

 was equally essential. A vicious and hypothetical system of 

 celestial dynamics, independent of physical laws, had, until the 

 period of Pythagoras^ limited the astronomical knowledge of the 

 ancients, to observations unconnected with philosophical theory : 

 and indeed, it was not until the time of Bacofi, that the real 

 foundations of natural science were laid. He first taught man- 

 kind how to trace nature, through all her laws, in order to use 

 our knowledge' of her power, for the highest purposes. 



We shall now proceed to speak of four great nations, of whose 

 existence we have historical proof fifteen hundred years before 

 Christ. The Indians, the Chinese, the Babylonians, and the 

 Egyptians. The Chinese, in whose favour such extravagant pre- 

 tensions were set up, appear to possess no authentic observation 

 of a greater antiquity, than an eclipse observed in the eighth 

 century before Christ. Neither does any astronomical observa- 

 tion made by the Chaldeans at Babylon, date farther back. 

 Thus, although we have satisfactory evidences that those people 

 existed as powerful and independent nations, seven hundred 

 years before the date of these astronomical records, yet we can- 

 not safely date the origin of science, before the eighth century 

 preceding the christian era. Having thus reduced within rea- 

 sonable bounds, the period of the first dawning of astronomy, the 



