MAXIMUM AND MINIMUM. 297 



that which is sufficiently curious 720 of these mean suns, 

 set one against another, would be required to fill up the 

 contour of a great circle of the celestial sphere. Is it this 

 fact which suggested the idea of dividing the circle into 



Simultaneously with the discovery of the variations of the 

 solar charioteer, it was ascertained that the moments of the 

 sun's passage of the meridian moments which measure the 

 365 different positions occupied by the sun in the 365 days 

 of the year are not separated by equal intervals, or that 

 equal intervals of time do not correspond to the equal angular 

 displacements, in fine, that the maximum and minimum of 

 the sun's angular velocity coincide with the maximum and 

 minimum of its apparent diameter. Now, remember that 

 the extreme points where the sun experiences its maximum 

 and minimum angular displacement are named, according 

 to Ptolemseus, the former the perigee, the latter the apogee; 

 or, if we follow Copernicus, the former the perihelion, and 

 the latter the aphelion. 



The aggregate of these facts was known to the ancients ; 

 but the manner in which it was sought to explain them 

 merits notice as a specimen of blind attachment to a pre- 

 conceived system. 



Ptolemaeus, the organ of the dictatorial astronomy of 

 antiquity, declares, ex cathedra, that "the inequalities of 

 the sun's movements are only apparent; that they are 

 simply the effects of the position and of the arrangements 



