150 THE GREEK ASTRONOMY. 



possessed. There is, indeed, no philosopher who is so uniformly spoken 

 of in terms of admiration. Ptolemy, to whom we owe our principal 

 knowledge of him, perpetually couples with his name epithets of 

 praise : he is not only an excellent and careful observer, but " a 5 most 

 truth-loving and labor-loving person," one who had shown extraordi- 

 nary sagacity and remarkable desire of truth in every part of science. 

 Pliny, after mentioning him and Thales, breaks out into one of his 

 passages of declamatory vehemence : " Great men ! elevated above the 

 common standard of human nature, by discovering the laws which 

 celestial occurrences obey, and by freeing the wretched miud of man 

 from the fears which eclipses inspired — Hail to you and to youi 

 genius, interpreters of heaven, worthy recipients of the laws of the 

 universe, authors of principles which connect gods and men !" Modern 

 writers have spoken of Hipparchus with the same admiration ; and even 

 the exact but severe historian of astronomy, Delambre, who bestows his 

 praise so sparingly, and his sarcasm so generally ; — who says 7 that it is 

 unfortunate for the memory of Aristarchus that his work has come to us 

 entire, and who cannot refer 8 to the statement of an eclipse rightly pre- 

 dicted by Halicon of Cyzicus without adding, that if the story be true, 

 Halicon was more lucky than prudent ; — loses all his bitterness when 

 he comes to Hipparchus. 9 " In Hipparchus," says he, " we find one 

 of the most extraordinary men of antiquity; the very greatest, in the 

 sciences which require a combination of observation with geometry." 

 Delambre adds, apparently in the wish to reconcile this eulogium with 

 the depreciating manner in which he habitually speaks of all astrono- 

 mers whose observations are inexact, " a long period and the continued 

 efforts of many industrious men are requisite to produce good instru- 

 ments, but energy and assiduity depend on the man himself." 



Hipparchus was the author of other great discoveries and improve- 

 ments in astronomy, besides the establishment of the Doctrine of 

 Eccentrics and Epicycles ; but this, being the greatest advance in the 

 theory of the celestial motions which was made by the ancients, must 

 be the leading subject of our attention in the present work ; our object 

 being to discover in what the progress of real theoretical knowledge 

 consists, and under what circumstances it has gone ou. 



8 Syn. ix. 2. ' Astronomie Ancienne, i. 75. 



8 lb. i. 17. * lb. i. 186. 



