discoveries of other people. He also shows that they had no solar year, but merely employed a period of twelve lunar months of twenty-nine and thirty days alternately, with a triennial intercolation of a thirteenth month to make it correspond more nearly with the sun's course. In other branches of science, the national vanity of the Chinese has led them to claim an equally early acquaintance with some of the most important facts. They have pretended to a knowledge of the mariner's compass, at a period beyond 1200 B. c., and have also laid claim to originating many of the fundamental theorems of geometry and even of trigonometry. From what has been discovered of their extreme want of honesty, and fondness for appropriating to themselves the inventions of others, but little credit is now generally attached to these claims. The Indians. Astronomical tables pretending to an enormous antiquity have been brought from India. The first were imported from Siam by M. de la Loubère in 1687; to which several other collections have since been added, particularly those from Tirvalore, Chrisnabouram, &c. These tables have afforded matter of great discussion. They refer to an epoch B. c. 3102; and their claim to this, as a real date, has been supported by M. Bailly* with great learning and ingenuity, whilst it has been held to be entirely fictitious by MM. Laplacet, Bentley, and Davis. An ancient treatise on astronomy, called the Surya-Siddhanta, has been also the subject of close scrutiny; and it seems now admitted by those best qualified to judge, that it was customary with the Hindoos to take for an epoch a fictitious general conjunction, obtained by calculating backwards, with the respective mean motions attributed to the several planets. Laplace has assigned very probable reasons for believing that the + Syst. du Monde, lib. v. * Astronomie Indienne. tables are of comparatively modern date, not older, probably, than the age of Ptolemy (A. D. 150); though there is no doubt that the cultivation of astronomy is of far higher antiquity. The age of the Surya-Siddhanta has been placed by Mr. Bentley about B. c. 1000. The Siamese tables assign certain cycles of the motions of the sun and moon, which give the lengths of the sidereal and tropical year as well as the lunar revolution, agreeing very closely with modern determinations. One of the early Indian astronomers, Aryabatta (whose date is uncertain), advocated the doctrine of the earth's rotation, as did also Bramah-Gupta at a much later period. They were certainly acquainted with some of the chief inequalities in the motions of the sun and moon. It has been a subject of controversy whether they borrowed from the astronomy of the Greeks. Sir W. Jones contended for the improbability of this idea from the known aversion of the Brahmins to foreigners in general, and the Greeks in particular. On the other hand, Mr. Colebrooke has cited from one of their writers an acknowledgment of the superiority of the Greeks in astronomy. In the mathematical sciences there seems great probability that the Indians had attained considerable proficiency at a remote age. They appear to have been early in possession of the fundamental theorem of geometry, which we have as the 47th of Euclid's 1st book, though at what date is uncertain, possibly before the age of Pythagoras, who may have borrowed it from them. However this may be, they show great ingenuity in their methods of proving it, which they do upon principles rather analytical than geometrical. Indeed it appears, from the testimony of all who have enquired into Indian literature, that they were early conspicuous for their acquaintance with algebra; they have evinced particular skill in the solution of problems of the class called indeterminate; their astronomical tables prove that they were acquainted with the principal theorems of spherical trigonometry; and their tables of sines appear to be calculated by means of second differences. All this certainly indicates a greater advance than was made by the western nations even at a much later period.* The Egyptians. The Egyptians seem to have obtained considerable celebrity for astronomical knowledge at a remote period. But little, if any thing, of their astronomy has been preserved; for Hipparchus and Ptolemy, though collecting ancient observations, give none from Egyptian astronomers, but have recourse to those of the Chaldeans. Diodorus Siculus informs us that the Egyptians were able to calculate eclipses; and other writers speak of the records of observed eclipses. They must have collected observations to assign the recurring period by which their predictions were framed. One of their early kings, Osymandyas (whose date is uncertain), is said to have constructed a large circle marked with the signs of the zodiac. Their religious solemnities were regulated by the lunar revolutions; while their civil year consisted of 365 days. They soon found that neither of these accorded with the true solar year but without caring to obtain an agreement between the religious or civil periods of the year with the physical seasons, they contented themselves with remarking the recurrence of a period of 1461 such years at which the succession of months and festivals returned to the same seasons, This was called the Sothaic period; and the occurrence of one such epoch is mentioned in A. D. 139. The preceding was therefore in the year B. c. 1322. Some writers have even contended that there was one before this. It appears from good authority that the Egyptians conceived the two inferior planets, Mercury and Venus, to revolve round the sun, accompanying him in his annual revolution round the earth. The invention of See Prof. Playfair's Memoir on the Astronomy of the Brahmins, Edinb. Trans. 1792. ii. Macrobius, Comm. in Somn. i. 9. the signs of the zodiac has been ascribed to them, though on very insufficient grounds. The existence at this day of representations of the zodiac in some of their temples is a fact from which we derive little certain information as to their astronomy. The representations are not easily explicable; and various conflicting theories have been suggested as to their meaning. According to Dio Cassius*, the Egyptians were the inventors of the period of seven days, distinguished by the names of the planets. This has been doubted; but it is, at all events, certain, that this period with corresponding names was in use among all the oriental nations, and even in India, at a very early period. It is remarkable that they all commenced their reckoning with the day dedicated to Saturn; whilst the Hebrews alone considered the following day as the first. Of the physical knowledge of the Egyptians we have little information which can be relied on. Here, as in other instances, we find extravagant claims put forth, and as strenuously supported by one party as decried by another. One thing appears certain, that whatever knowledge existed in that country was confined to the priests, who employed a sacred language of symbols, utterly defying all attempts to decipher it except by the initiated; and which might undoubtedly be employed to preserve valuable truths and philosophical speculations; or equally well might have served to invest with all the veneration so freely accorded to whatever is hidden and mysterious the most absurd superstitions and puerile conceits. It has been alleged that the origin of the ancient geometry is to be traced to Egypt; and that its theorems arose from the necessity of recurring to some principles of mensuration for fixing the boundaries of lands where all landmarks were obliterated by the periodical overflowing of the Nile. This account appears by no means probable in its circumstances; since it would seem very easy to invent landmarks which should obviate * xxxvii. 18. the difficulty; and, again, it is not readily apparent how the theorems of abstract geometry could have been rendered applicable to such a purpose. The cultivation of geometry as a science unquestionably took its rise in the abstracted conceptions of philosophers, and not from any of its mechanical applications; these being not of a nature to occur to any one but as a result of principles which must have been first understood. The Hebrews. The Hebrews, from their early connection with Egypt, probably derived whatever science they possessed from that country; but this would appear never to have amounted to much as a nation, they do not seem to have acquired any taste for the cultivation of physical knowledge. There may have been individual exceptions: Moses, we are told, was initiated into all the learning of Egypt (B. c. 1500); and at a later period their historians ascribe to king Solomon (B. c. 1020) a great proficiency in the study of natural history. [1 Kings, iv. 33.] Several of the writers in the Old Testament (as, indeed, we have before remarked) allude to the contemplation of the heavenly bodies, as well as to other phenomena of nature ; but their records present no traces of philosophical speculation. From certain expressions occurring in them, we may, indeed, collect that the prevalent belief was in accordance with the theory of the quiescence of the earth and the motion of the sun; and the magnificent description of the origin of the world, with which the first book of Moses opens, has been regarded by some as the delivery of a system of cosmogony and geology; but (without going into extraneous questions) it seems to us extremely improbable that the representation was designed with any such object; indeed, we can never infer much in reference to matters of philosophy from passages occurring (as those in question do) in writings devoted to subjects с |