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and Strabo expressly declares, that there were several universities in Babylon, wherein astronomy was chiefly professed; and Pliny tells us much the same thing. So that it might well be expected, that where such a science was so much studied, it ought to have been proportionably cultivated. Notwithstanding all which it does appear, that there was nothing done by the Chaldeans older than about four hundred years before Alexander's conquest, which could be serviceable either to Hipparchus or Ptolomy in their determination of the celestial motions: for had there been any observations older than those we have, it cannot be doubted but the victorious Greeks must have procured them, as well as those they did, they being still more valuable for their antiquity. All we have of them is only seven eclipses of the moon preserved in Ptolomy's Syntaxes; and even those are very coarsely set down, and the oldest not much above seven hundred years before Christ; so that after all the fame of these Chaldeans, we may be sure that they had not gone far in this

science. And though Callisthenes is said by Porphyry to have brought from Babylon to Greece observations above one thousand nine hundred years older than Alexander; yet the proper authors making no mention or use of any such, renders it justly suspected for a fable.' What the Egyptians did in this matter is less evident; because no one observation made by them can be found in their countryman Ptolomy, except what was done by the Greeks of Alexandria under three hundred years before CHRIST. Therefore whatever was the learning of these two ancient nations, respecting the motions of the stars, it seems to have been chiefly theoretical; and I will not deny, but some of them might very long since be apprized of the sun's being the centre of our system, for such was the doctrine of Pythagoras and Philolaus, and some others, who were said to have travelled into these parts.

'Callisthenes' account may not be a fable: the subsequent authors neither mentioned nor used these observations, because they were in truth, such sorry ones, that no use could be made of them.

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"From hence it may appear, that the Greeks were the first practical astronomers, who endeavoured in earnest to make themselves masters of the science, and to whom we owe all the old observations of the planets, and of the equinoxes and tropics. Thales was the first who could predict an eclipse in Greece not six hundred years before CHRIST; and without doubt it was but a rude account he had of the motions; and it was Hipparchus who made the first catalogue of the fixed stars not above one hundred and fifty years before CHRIST; without which catalogue there could be scarce such a science as astronomy; and it is to the subtility and diligence of that great author, that the world was beholding for all its astronomy for above one thousand five hundred years. All that Ptolomy did in his syntaxis, was no more than a bare transcription of the theories of Hipparchus, with some little emendation of the periodical motions, after about three hundred years interval; and this book of Ptolomy was, without dispute, the utmost perfection of the ancient astronomy; nor

was there any thing in any nation before it comparable thereto; for which reason all the other authors thereof were disregarded and lost, and among them Hipparchus himself. Nor did posterity dare to alter the theories delivered by Ptolomy, though successively Albategnius and the Arabs, and after them the Spanish astronomers under Alphonsus endeavoured to mend the errors which they observed in their computations. But their labours were fruitless, whilst from the defects of their principles it was impossible to reconcile the moon's motion within a degree, nor the planets Mars and Mercury, to a much greater space."

Thus we see the opinion of this learned and judicious astronomer. He He very justly says, that Thales could give but a rude account of the motions, and that before Hipparchus, there could be scarce such a science as astronomy; most certainly therefore no such nice argumentation as our great author offers, can be well grounded, upon (as he himself calls them) the coarse, I might say, the conjectural and unaccountable astronomy of the ancients.

II. Another argument which Sir Isaac Newton offers, in order to shew, that the ancient profane history is carried up higher than it ought to be; is taken from the lengths of the reigns of the ancient kings. He remarks, that "the Egyptians, Greeks, and Latins, reckoned the reigns of kings equipollent to generations of men, and three generations to a hundred years; and accordingly they made their kings reign one with another thirty and three years apiece and above." He would have these reckonings reduced to the course of nature, and the reigns of the ancient kings put one with another at about eighteen or twenty years apiece. This he represents would correct the error of carrying the profane history too far backward, and would fix the several epochs of it more agreeable to true chronology.

In answer to this, I would observe, 1. The word y generation may either signify a descent; thus Jacob was two generations after Abraham, i. e. he was his grandson: or

Newton's Chronology, p. 55.

P. 55.

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