26 THE EVOLUTION OF SCIENCE. 



organized, while its spirit and purpose were gradually be- 

 ing defined. It is of its transformations during this 

 formative period that I wish to speak. 



It is natural to suppose that the surpassing beauty of 

 the unclouded skies would earliest attract the eyes of 

 men ; and we may therefore believe that the contact of 

 nature with the human mind began with the observation 

 of the stars. As a matter of fact, we find in Babylonia 

 anid Egypt, as well as in China, a great number of date- 

 less observations of an astronomical character, made 

 during a period reaching, according to Chinese chronol- 

 ogy, from almost four thousand years before the Chris- 

 tian era. The emperor Fou Hi, who reigned twenty- 

 two hundred and fifty-eight years before Christ, is said 

 to have erected an observatory ; and, seen a little more 

 clearly in the mists of antiquity, is Tcheou Kong, who, 

 eleven hundred years before the advent of our Lord, 

 observed the altitude of the sun at the time of solstice. 

 This, by some authorities, is regarded as the first obser- 

 vation which can claim to have been made with any 

 degree of precision ; and therefore the first that has any 

 astronomical value. 



The knowledge acquired by observation during this 

 ancient period, extending to within a half century of the 

 beginning of our era, consisted almost wholly of the 

 periods of the motions of the sun and moon. By means 

 of these periods, by the simplest arithmetical calcula- 

 tions, eclipses were foretold with some degree of success, 

 the lengths of the year and the month were fixed with 

 some approach to accuracy, and a calendar was con- 

 structed to regulate the national festivals. This was the 

 total outcome of all the centuries — a mass of observations 

 without the vestige of a principle to connect them, and 

 esteemed of value only so far as they ministered to the 

 necessities of national or religious life. Astronomy had 

 not yet become a living science. Nothing had been 



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