SEQEUL TO THE EPOCH OF HIPPARCHUS. 239 



The series of Astronomical Tables which we have 

 thus noticed, in which, however, many are omitted, 

 leads us to the Alphonsine tables, which were put 

 forth in 1488, and in succeeding years, under the 

 auspices of Alphonso, king of Castile ; and thus 

 brings us to the verge of modern astronomy. 



For all these Tables, the Ptolemaic hypotheses 

 were employed; and, for the most part, without 

 alteration. The Arabs sometimes felt the extreme 

 complexity and difficulty of the doctrine which 

 they studied ; but their minds did not possess that 

 kind of invention and energy by which the phi- 

 losophers of Europe, at a later period, won their 

 way into a simpler and better system. 



Thus Alpetragius states, in the outset of his 

 "Planetarum Theorica," that he was at first asto- 

 nished and stupified with this complexity, but that 

 afterwards " God was pleased to open to him the 

 occult secret in the theory of his orbs, and to 

 make known to him the truth of their essence, and 

 the rectitude of the quality of their motion." His 

 system consists, according to Delambre 39 , in attri- 

 buting to the planets a spiral motion from east 

 to west, an idea already refuted by Ptolemy. Geber 

 of Seville criticizes Ptolemy very severely 40 , but 

 without introducing any essential alteration into 

 his system. The Arabian observations are in many 

 cases valuable ; both because they were made with 

 more skill and with better instruments than those 



39 Delambre, M. A. p. 7- 40 M. A. p. 180, &c. 



