384 HISTORY OF FORMAL ASTRONOMY. 



Next to the Greeks, the Indians appear to have 

 possessed that original vigour and clearness of 

 thought, from which true science springs. It is 

 remarkable that the Indians, also, had their helio- 

 centric theorists. Aryabatta 5 , (AD. 1322), and other 

 astronomers of that country, are said to have advo- 

 cated the doctrine of the earth's revolution on its 

 axis ; which opinion, however, was rejected by sub- 

 sequent philosophers among the Hindoos. 



Some writers have thought that the heliocentric 

 doctrine was derived by Pythagoras and other 

 European philosophers, from some of the oriental 

 nations. This opinion, however, will appear to have 

 little weight, if we consider that the heliocentric 

 hypothesis, in the only shape in which the ancients 

 knew it, was too obvious to require much teaching; 

 that it did not and could not, so far as we know, 

 receive any additional strength from anything which 

 the oriental nations could teach ; and that each 

 astronomer was induced to adopt or reject it, not 

 by any information which a master could give him, 

 but by his love of geometrical simplicity on the 

 one hand, or the prejudices of sense on the other. 

 Real science, depending on a clear view of the 

 relation of phenomena to general theoretical ideas, 

 cannot be communicated in the way of secret and 

 exclusive traditions, like the mysteries of certain 

 arts and crafts. If the philosopher do not see 

 that the theory is true, he is little the better for 

 5 Lib. U. K. Hist. Ast. p. 11. 



