GREEK PHYSICS. 



I. ASTRONOMY. 



IT would be useless, if even the nature of our work would admit of it, General 

 to attempt to trace the history of this science from its earliest state of view * 

 infancy, which is probably nearly coeval with that of society itself; 

 at least if we regard the rude observations of shepherds and herdsmen 

 as exhibiting the first dawn of astronomy. A man must be strangely 

 divested of the curiosity peculiar to his species, who, while exposed 

 to the varying canopy of the heavens, through successive nights and 

 seasons, could suffer such a brilliant spectacle to pass repeatedly before 

 him, without noticing the fixed or variable objects there presented to 

 his view ; and his attention, once drawn to a contemplation of the fir- 

 mament, he would remark the invariable position of the greater number 

 of those bodies with regard to each other ; the irregular motion of 

 others ; and hence, by some denomination or other, we should have a 

 distinction made between what we now call the fixed stars and the 

 planets ; while the sun and moon are, in their appearances, sufficiently 

 distinct from the rest of the heavenly bodies, to have called for a 

 farther distinguishing appellation, and to have claimed the particular 

 regard of these rude observers. 



Such was probably the origin of astronomy ; and in this state, in 

 all likelihood, it might remain for many ages, and in many countries 

 unknown to and unconnected with each other. The length of the 

 year, the duration of a lunar revolution, the particular rising of certain 

 stars at certain seasons, and a few other common and obvious phe- 

 nomena, might therefore be predicted with a certain degree of accu- 

 racy, long before those observations assumed anything like a scientific 

 form, and long anterior to that time from which we date the origin of 

 astronomy as a science, properly so called. 



The honour of being the first inventors of this sublime study has Claims of the 

 been attributed to various nations ; the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the 

 Chinese, the Indians, have each had their advocates amongst our as- 

 tronomical historians ; and even a certain unknown people have been 

 created by the enthusiasm of some writers, of whom all traces are 

 supposed to have been long lost, but to whom all original knowledge 

 of astronomy has been attributed. The more closely, however, we 

 examine the claims of these actual or imaginary people, the more we 

 shall be convinced that their astronomy consisted of little more than 

 we have indicated above ; viz., a tolerable approximation to certain 

 periods, and to the reappearance of certain phenomena, that required 

 nothing more than a continued and patient observation of stated occur- 



