CHAPTER II. 



PRELUDE TO THE INDUCTIVE EPOCH OF 

 HIPPARCHUS. 



WITHOUT pretending that we have exhausted 

 the consequences of the elementary disco- 

 veries which we have enumerated, we now proceed 

 to consider the nature and circumstances of the 

 next great discovery which makes an Epoch in the 

 history of astronomy ; and this we shall find to be 

 the Theory of Epicycles and Eccentrics. Before, 

 however, we relate the establishment of this theory, 

 we must, according to the general plan we have 

 marked out, notice some of the conjectures and 

 attempts by which it was preceded, and the grow- 

 ing acquaintance with facts, which made the want 

 of such an explanation felt. 



In the steps previously made in astronomical 

 knowledge, no ingenuity had been required, to 

 devise the view which was adopted. The motions 

 of the stars and sun were most naturally and 

 almost irresistibly conceived as the results of mo- 

 tion in a revolving sphere ; the indications of posi- 

 tion which we obtain from different places on the 

 earth's surface, when clearly combined, obviously 

 imply a globular shape. In these cases, the first 

 conjectures, the supposition of the simplest form, 



