ASTRONOMY. 



dies was a difficult task, and required the 

 united observations of many ages. To 

 ascertain the laws and causes of these 

 motions demanded the exertions of pow- 

 ers almost beyond the reach of the hu- 

 man faculties. This has, however, been 

 accomplished, and it has been demonstra- 

 ted, that the most minute movements of 

 the heavenly bodies depend upon the 

 same general law with the rest, and to be 

 the consequence of it. Astronomy has 

 therefore been highly regarded, as exhi- 

 biting one of the most remarkable in- 

 stances of the extent and powers of the 

 .reasoning faculties. It has, moreover, con- 

 ferred upon mankind the greatest bene- 

 fits, in many respects, as will be shewn in 

 the course of the present work, and may 

 be properly considered as the teacher 

 and guide of the art of navigation. 



The early history of astronomy ad- 

 mits of no regular elucidation. It is pro- 

 bable that some knowledge of the kind 

 must have been nearly coeval with the 

 human race, as well from motives of cu- 

 riosity, as from the connection which ithas 

 with the common concerns of life. Traces 

 of it have accordingly been found among 

 various nations, remote from each other, 

 which shew that the most remarkable 

 phenomena must have been observed, and 

 a knowledge of them disseminated, at a 

 very remote period. But in what age or 

 country the science first originated, or by 

 whom it was in those early times me- 

 thodized and improved, is not now known. 

 Such, however, as wish for every infor- 

 mation that the subject admits of, we re- 

 fer to the learned and very elaborate his- 

 tory of ancient and modern astronomy, 

 by M. Bailly, a man of the highest repu- 

 tation in the scientific world, and who was 

 basely and cruelly murdered, in the zenith 

 of his celebrity, by the bloodthirsty Robe- 

 spierre, whose savage ambition was, to 

 efface from the earth every thing great, 

 virtuous, and excellent. 



M. Bailly endeavours to trace the ori- 

 gin of astronomy among the Chaldeans, 

 Egyptians, Persians, Indians, and Chinese, 

 to a very early period. From the re- 

 searches which he has made on this sub- 

 ject, he is led to conclude that the know- 

 ledge common to the' whole of those na- 

 tions has been derived from the same 

 original source ; namely, a most ancient 

 and nightly cultivated people of Asia, of 

 whose memory every trace is now extinct, 

 but who have been the parent instructors 

 of all around them. The situation of this 

 ancient people he conjectures to have 

 been in Siberia, about the 50th degree of 



VOL. IT. 



north latitude. Among various other co- 

 incidences, he observes that many of the 

 European and Asiatic nations attribute 

 their origin to that quarter, where the ct= 

 vil and religious rites common to each, 

 were probably first formed. 



Without going farther back, we may 

 observe, that the Egyptians were early 

 cultivators of this science, and that among 

 the Greeks, Thales, who travelled into 

 Egypt, and who was the founder of the 

 Ionian sect, appears to have been the first 

 who taught his' countrymen the globular 

 figure of the earth, the obliquity of the 

 ecliptic, and the causes of solar and lunar 

 eclipses ; which latter phenomena he is 

 also said to have been able to predict. 

 Thales had for his successors, Anaximan- 

 der, Anaximenes, and Anaxagoras, to the 

 first of whom is attributed the invention 

 of the gnomon and geographical charts ; 

 but for which he was probably indebted 

 to the Egyptians. He is also said to have 

 maintained that the sun was a mass of 

 fire as large as the earth, which, though 

 far below the truth with respect to size, 

 was an opinion, for those early times, that 

 does its author much credit, though to 

 him s as in the case of Galileo, the truths 

 he had discovered were the cause of per- 

 secution. Both himself and his children 

 were proscribed by the Athenians for his 

 attempting to subject the works of the 

 gods to immutable laws ; and his life 

 would have paid the sacrifice of his te- 

 merity, but for the care of Pericles, his 

 friend and disciple, who got his sentence 

 of death changed into exile. Next after 

 the Ionian school was that of Pythagoras; 

 who was born at Samos, about the year 

 586 before the Christian sera, and who, in 

 the celebrity he acquired, far exceeded 

 his predecessors. Like Thales, he visited 

 Egypt, and afterwards the Brachmans of 

 India, from whom he is supposed to have 

 obtained many of the astronomical truths 

 which he brought with him into Italy, 

 to which country he was obliged to re- 

 tire, on account of the despotism which 

 then prevailed at Athens. Here he first 

 taught the true system of the world, 

 which many centuries after, was revived 

 by Copernicus: but hid his doctrines from 

 the vulgar, in imitation of the Egyptian 

 priests, who had been his instructors. It 

 was even thought, in this school, that the 

 planets were inhabited bodies, like the 

 earth ; and that the stars, which are dis- 

 seminated through infinite space, are suns, 

 and the centres of other planetary sys- 

 tems. They also considered the comets 

 as permanent bodies, moving rund the 



H 



