4 HISTORY OF ASTRONOMICAL DISCOVERY. 



walking in her beauty, for astrological purposes ; and hence inspired prophecy, when 

 denouncing the divine judgments against Babylon, challenges the " astrologers, the star- 

 gazers, and the monthly prognosticates," to try their power to avert them. The pre- 

 dominance of this delusion during the middle ages in Europe, transported hither from 

 the East, is well known. The fate of empires, the destiny of monarchs, the consequences 

 of battle, the private fortunes of individuals might, it was supposed, be gathered from 

 the position of the stars at the time of the nativity of the persons on whose behalf they 

 were consulted, compared with their position at the time of the consultation ; and with- 

 out applying to the seer, who was imagined to read in the heavens the character of 

 every event, whether it would prove favourable or adverse, scarcely any public measure 

 or private enterprise was undertaken. 



The honour of priority in observing the celestial sphere has, however, been claimed for 

 the ancient Hindus, the Chinese, and the Egyptians ; and to the two former especially, 

 a cultivated knowledge of its mechanism at a far distant era has been assigned. It would 

 involve a tedious and unsatisfactory detail to consider this question at length. It may 

 suffice to remark, that the preponderance of evidence is in favour of the plains of Chaldea 

 being the primal seat of application to observative astronomy that from thence, as from 

 a general centre, it radiated, at some unknown but remote period, towards the banks 

 of the Nile on the one side, and to India and China on the other and that, in the in- 

 fancy of national existence in those countries, the rising and setting of the stars, lunar 

 and solar eclipses, and conjunctions of the planets, were objects of attention, with an 

 entire reference either to astrology, religion, or policy of state. The Hindu tables claim 

 an epoch of 3102 years before Christ, and fix a general conjunction of the sun, moon, and 

 planets, at that era, the beginning of the Caliyug, or iron age of their mythology ; but 

 modern calculation proves the impossibility of such a conjunction then occurring 'that 

 Venus, in particular, could not have been near it at the time specified. The tables there- 

 fore are not established on observation, but have been calculated backwards, either from data 

 supplied by native application in a comparatively recent age, or derived from the Greeks 

 and Arabs. In opposition to this last conjecture, the proud scorn of foreign nations en- 

 tertained by the Brahmins has been quoted, which seems to have been special in relation 

 to the Greeks or Yavans, from their proverb that no base creature can be lower than a 

 Yavan ; but the following curious passage from one of their earliest astronomers upholds 

 the former opinion : " The Yavans," says he, " are barbarians, but this science is well 

 established among them, and they are revered like holy sages." With reference to the 

 ancient Chinese, we have little in their annals beyond records of solar eclipses, which 

 were regarded as prognostics of importance to the empire. Those which may be depended 

 upon, as having been actually observed, commence with the year 776 before Christ, and 

 terminate with the year 1433 of our era. But nothing is more dubious than the credit of 

 their native histories ; and nothing more certain than the ignorance of the professedly scien- 

 tific class, even of the simplest operations of practical astronomy, when intercourse was first 

 opened with the people of the West. In Egypt, no doubt, attention to celestial phenomena 

 commenced with the era of its early inhabitants. The exactness with which some of the 

 pyramids have been made to face the four cardinal points has engendered the suspicion 

 that they were designed for an astronomical use ; and authorities may be cited, who state, 

 that they terminated at the top in a platform which the priests occupied as an observatory 

 of the heavens. But if the Greek philosopher taught them how to find the height of the 

 pyramids by the shadow, one of the most simple examples of practical geometry ; we can 

 form no high idea of the accomplishments of the Egyptians. In fact, Ptolemy, who lived 

 in the country, and may be presumed to have been acquainted with its records, derived 

 none of his materials from that source, but only quotes the observations of the Chaldeans. 



