36 UNIVERSAL ERUDITION. 



CHAP. III. 



CHRONOLOGY. 



I. /^ Hronology is the fcience that teaches 

 ^-^ the method of meafwing time and diftin- 

 guifhing its parts. It is more difficult, than may 

 at firfl appear, to determine the precife idea, and 

 clearly to explain the nature of time. That 

 ingenious and fubtile impoftor Mahomet has 

 given in his Alcoran fome traces of very refined 

 ideas of this fubjec~t. But, leaving thefe meta- 

 phyfical refearches, we mail content ourfelves 

 with faying, that by time we here mean the du- 

 ration and fucceflion of created beings. To de- 

 termine a fixed and fenfible meafure of duration, 

 it is necefiary to find fome motion that is con- 

 ftantly uniform, which may ferve as a fcale for 

 that meafure. From the creation of the world, 

 it has been obferved that the courfes of the heaven- 

 ly bodies afford the moft univerfal meafure of 

 motion to all the inhabitants of the earth. As 

 it was originally imagined that the fun turned 

 round the earth, his annual and diurnal revolu- 

 tions were fixed on for the common meafure of 

 time j and by this meafure they divided the du- 

 ration 



