OV THE HISTORT OF ASTRONOMV^ 5,91 



to their ancient customs, extending itself even to their astronomy, has im- 

 peded its progress, and retained it in a state of infancy. The Indian tables 

 indicate a much higher degree of perfection in tlie early state of the science, 

 than it had attained in China; but we have every reason to believe that they 

 are not of very remote antiquity. " Here", says Mr. Laplace, who must be 

 allowed to be free from prejudices in favour of established opinions, " I am 

 sorry to be obliged to differ from an illustrious philosopher, Mr. Bailly, who, 

 after having distinguished his career by a variety of labours useful to the 

 sciences, and to mankind at large, fell a victim to the most sanguinary ty- 

 ranny that ever disgraced a civilised nation. The Indian tables are referred 

 to two principal epochs, which are placed the one 3102 years before Christ, 

 the other 1491. These are connected by the mean motions, and not the 

 true motions, of the sun, the moon, and the planets ; so that one of the 

 epochs must necessarily be fabulous. The celebrated author, who has been 

 mentioned, has sought to establish, in his treatise on Indian astronomy, that 

 the former of these epochs is founded on observation. But if we calculate 

 from our own improved tables, we shall find that the general conjunction of 

 the sun, moon, and planets, which the Indian tables suppose, in reality never 

 happened, although it may be deduced, according to those tables, by ascend- 

 ing from the later series. The equation of the sun's centre, depending on 

 the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, appears indeed to indicate a still higher 

 antiquity; but its magnitude, as deduced from eclipses, must have been 

 affected by a contrary error with respect to the moon's place: and the de- 

 termination of the mean motion of the moon seems to make it probable that 

 these tables are even of a later date than Ptolemy." 



In astronomy, as well as in other sciences, the Greeks were the disciples of 

 the Egyptians; they appear to have divided the stars into constellations 13 or 

 1400 years before Christ. Newton attributes this arrangement to Chiron, and 

 he supposes that he made the middle of the constellations correspond to the 

 beginning of the respective signs. But until the time of the foundation of 

 the school of Alexandria, the Greeks treated astronomy as a science purely 

 speculative, and indulged themselves in the most frivolous conjectures respect- 

 ing it. It is singular that amidst the confusion of systems heaped up on each 

 other, without aftbrding the least information to the mind, it should never have 



