98 BAILLY. 



These epithets may perhaps appear extraordinary ; 

 but they will be so only to those who have learnt the 

 science of the stars in ancient poems, either in verse or 

 in prose. 



The Chaldeans, luxuriously reclining on the perfumed 

 terraced roofs of their houses in Babylon, under a con- 

 stantly azure sky, followed with their eyes the general 

 and majestic movements of the starry sphere ; they as- 

 certained the respective displacements of the planets, the 

 moon, the sun ; they noted the date and hour of eclipses ; 

 they sought out whether simple periods would not enable 

 them to foretell these magnificent phenomena a long time 

 beforehand. Thus the Chaldaeans created, if I may be 

 allowed the expression, Contemplative Astronomy. Their 

 observations were neither numerous nor exact ; they both 

 made and discussed them without labour and without 

 trouble. 



Such is not, by a great deal, the position of modern 

 astronomers. Science has felt the necessity of the celes- 

 tial motions being studied in their minutest details. 

 Theories must explain these details ; it is their touch- 

 stone ; it is by details that theories become confirmed or 

 fall to the ground. Besides, in Astronomy, the most 

 important truths, the most astonishing results, are based 

 on the measurement of quantities of extreme minuteness. 

 Such measures, the present bases of the science, require 

 very fatiguing attention, infinite care, to which no learned 

 man would bind himself, were he not sustained, and en- 

 couraged by the hope of attaining some capital deter- 

 mination, through an ardent and decided devotion to the 

 subject. 



The modern astronomer, really worthy of the name, 

 must renounce the distractions of society, and even the 



