Part 93

It was not without being sensible how very unequal I am to the undertaking, that I first consented to comply with the request of several gentlemen for whom I have the highest esteem, and to solicit your attention on a subject which an able hand might indeed render both entertaining and instructive; I mean Astronomy. But the earnest desire I have to contribute something towards the improvement of Science in general, and particularly of Astronomy, in this my native country, joined with the fullest confidence that I shall be favoured with your most candid indulgence, however far I may fall short of doing justice to the noble subject, enables me chearfully to take my turn as a member of the society, on this annual occasion.

The order I shall observe in the following discourse, is this: In the first place I shall give a very short account of the rise and progress of astronomy, then take notice of some of the most important discoveries that have been made in this science, and conclude with pointing out a few of its defects at the present time.

As, on this occasion, it is not necessary to treat my subject in a strictly scientific way, I shall hazard some conjectures of my own; which, if they have but novelty to recommend them, may perhaps be more acceptable than retailing the conjectures of others.

The first rise of astronomy, like the beginnings of other sciences, is lost in the obscurity of ancient times. Some have attributed its origin to that strong propensity mankind have discovered, in all ages, for prying into futurity; supposing that astronomy was cultivated only as subservient to judicial astrology. Others with more reason suppose astrology to have been the spurious offspring of astronomy; a supposition that does but add one more to the many instances of human depravity, which can convert the best things to the worst purposes.

The honour of first cultivating astronomy has been ascribed to the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Arabians, and likewise to the Chinese; amongst whom, it is pretended, astronomical observations are to be found of almost as early a date as the flood. But little credit is given to these reports of the Jesuits, who it is thought were imposed on by the natives; or else perhaps from motives of vanity, they have departed a little from truth, in their accounts of a country and people among whom they were the chief European travellers.

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Footnote A1:

The reader will find a very learned and interesting dissertation on the astronomy of these and other nations of antiquity, in Lalande’s Astronomie, liv. ii. W. B.

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Not to mention the prodigious number of years in which it is said the Chaldeans observed the heavens, I pass on to what carries the appearance of more probability; the report that when Alexander took Babylon, astronomical observations for one thousand nine hundred years before that time were found there, and sent from thence to Aristotle. But we cannot suppose those observations to have been of much value; for we do not find that any use was ever after made of them.

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Footnote A2:

Our orator might well pass on, without noticing more particularly the fabulous annals of the Chaldeans. They assigned to the reigns of their ten dynasties, 432 thousand years: and Lalande observes, that this number, 432, augmented by two or by four noughts, frequently occurs in antiquity. This prodigious number of years expresses, according to the notions of the inhabitants of India, the duration of the life of a symbolical cow: in the first age, this cow, serving as a vehicle for innocence and virtue, advances with a firm step upon the earth, supported by her four feet; in the second, or silver age, she becomes somewhat enfeebled, and walks on only three feet; during the brazen, or third age, she is reduced to the necessity of walking on two; finally, during the iron age, she drags herself along; and, after having lost, successively, all her legs, she recovers them in the succeeding period, all of them being reproduced in the same order.

The Bramins thus make up their fabulous chronological account of the age of the world; viz.

The duration of the first age, 1,728,000 years The second 1,296,000 do. The third 864,000 do. The fourth will continue 432,000 do. ————————— Making the total duration of the world 4,320,000 years.

Mr. Lalande remarks, that these four ages have a relation to the numbers 4, 3, 2, 1, which seem to announce some other thing than an historical division. Therefore, to give this fabulous duration of the world some semblance of truth. Mr. Bailly rejects, in the first place, the fourth age, of which, at present, (that is, when Lalande wrote,) only 4887 years have passed: the residue of this duration could not be considered by Bailly as any thing more than a reverie: and as for the three first ages, he takes the years for days; in order to shew, that, in reality, they reckoned by days, before they computed by solar years. By these means, Bailly has reduced the pretensions of the people of India to 12,000 years; and he identifies this calculation for the Indians with that of the Persians, who give, likewise, 12,000 years for the duration of the world. The accordance thus produced in the two chronologies, seemed to Bailly to strengthen the authenticity of the recital; and makes it appear, that these notions prevailed alike among the Egyptians and the Chinese.

Such are the data, such the calculations, and such the reasoning of Mr. Bailly, on this subject.

But, although Mr. Lalande has noticed the retrograde series of the progressive numbers (1,) 2, 3, 4, in the Asiatic account of the age of the world, a kind of mysterious constitution of the amount of the years, in the several ages which make up the entire sum of its duration, seems to have escaped the observation of that acute philosopher; and probably the same circumstance passed also unnoticed by Mr. Bailly: it may be considered as a species of chronological abracadabra, engendered in the prolific brain of some eastern philosopher: the following is the circumstance here meant. It will be perceived, in the first place, that the arrangement of the numerical figures, in making up the years allotted to the fourth age of the world, is apparently artificial, and therefore, probably, altogether arbitrary. It will then be seen, that the number of years in the third age is double the amount of those in the fourth; that those in the second is made up by adding together the years in the fourth and third ages; and, that those in the first age are constituted by an addition of the number of years in the fourth and second ages. This being the fact, it does not seem to bear out Mr. Bailly, in his hypothesis, and the calculations founded on it. W. B.

Footnote A2a:

Mr. Bailly was the author of a History of Ancient and modern Astronomy. His Essay on the Theory of Jupiter’s Satellites, which is said to be a valuable treatise, was published in the year 1766. Both works are in the French language, and were printed in France.

Footnote A3:

Lalande observes that Mr. Bailly has gone back, in his astronomical researches, to the first traditions of an antedeluvian people, among whom there remained scarcely any traces of such knowledge; and that he has presented us, in his work, with ingenious conjectures and probabilities; or, more properly, appearances of truth, (“vraisemblables,”) written with many charms of extensive information. But, according to Mr. Lalande himself, all the ancient astronomy down to the time of Chiron, which was about fourteen centuries before the Christian era, may with probability be reduced to the examining of the rising of some stars at different times of the year, and the phases of the moon; since, long after that period, as this great astronomer remarks, the Chaldeans and Egyptians yet knew nothing of either the duration or the inequalities of the planetary movements. W. B.

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The Egyptians too, we are told, had observations of the stars for one thousand five hundred years before the Christian era. What they were, is not known; but probably the astronomy of those ages consisted in little more than remarks on the rising and setting of the fixed stars, as they were found to correspond with the seasons of the year; and, perhaps, forming them into constellations. That this was done early, appears from the book of Job, which has by some been attributed to Moses, who is said to have been learned in the sciences of Egypt. “Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season, or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?” Perhaps too, some account might be kept of eclipses of the sun and moon, as they happened, without pretending to predict them for the future. These eclipses are thought by some to have been foretold by the Jewish prophets in a supernatural way.

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Footnote A4:

See the preceding note.

Footnote A5: