164 THEORY OP THE EARTH. 



perstition to which they were addicted, rendered 

 the stars a general object of attention. They had 

 also colleges, or societies of their most respectable 

 men, appointed to make astronomical observations, 

 and to put them upon record. Let us suppose, 

 also, that among so many persons who had nothing 

 else to do, there were two or three possessed of 

 singular talents for the study of geometrical science, 

 and every thing known to that people might 

 easily have been accomplished in a very few cen- 

 turies. 



Since the time of the Chaldeans, real astrono- 

 my has only had two eras ; that of the Alexandrian 

 school, which lasted four centuries, and that of 

 our own times, which had not yet lasted so long. 

 The learned period of the Arabs hardly added 

 anything to that science, and all the other ages of 

 the world were mere blanks with respect to it. 

 Three hundred years did not intervene between 

 Copernicus and De la Place, the celebrated author 

 of the Mecanique Celeste ; yet some wish to believe, 

 that the Hindoos must have had many thousand 

 years to discover their astronomical rules. After 

 all, even were every thing that has been fancied 

 respecting the antiquity of astronomy as fully 

 proved as it appears to us destitute of proof, it 

 would establish no conclusion against the great 

 catastrophe, which has left in other respects so 

 many convincing monuments of its own existence. 

 All that it is necessary to admit, even on that sup- 



