SYSTEMS OF ASTRONOMY. 207 



nature, will be more erroneous, and less to be de- 

 pended on tlian others. Had the Edinburgh Re- 

 viewer, therefore, adopted tliis plan, and rejected 

 the extremes, 1 105 and 340, as too incorrect, no 

 fault whatever could be found with him for so 

 doinp-; for the remainino- eis'ht results would still 

 have been more than sufficient to answer the purpose 

 required. 



But his views, as may be easily seen, were to en- 

 deavour, if possible, to discredit any iuvestigation 

 that should in the smallest degree tend to open the 

 eyes of the public with respect to the true antiquity 

 of Hindu books ; and therefore he asserts, that the 

 heavenly bodies must have been so inaccurately ob- 

 served by the author, as to furnish no basis for cal- 

 culation, or that the observations were made at a 

 period prodigiously anterior to that assigned by me. 

 Why did he not point out what these errors were, 

 that his readers might judge of the truth or false- 

 hood of his assertions ? 



But in order to shew the fallacy of the Reviewer's 

 argument, let us endeavour, if possible, to ascer- 

 tain the quantity of the errors from the years only, 

 on which the Reviewer grounds his notions. 



The years are obtained by dividing the error in 

 the position of the planet, at a certain instant, by 

 the error in the mean annual motion, which, by its 

 gradual accumulation, is supposed to have caused 

 the error in position. Therefore, suppose we de- 

 note the error in position by x, and that in the mean 

 annual motion by y, and that 7 = 110.^; it is re- 

 quired from thence, to determine the quantities x 

 and y, which the Edinburgh Reviewer would wish 

 to make his readers believe, must be so extraordi- 

 narily great as to leave no basis for calculation : I 

 say it is absolutely impossible, nor does the nature 

 of the case admit of such an unjust inference. For 



