8. An Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients. By Sir George Cornwall Lewis. London. 1862.

9. The Recent Progress of Astronomy; especially in the United States. By Elias Loomis, LL. D. New York. New York. 1856.

We have read, with an absorbing interest, the fascinating little work of Professor Loomis, on The Recent Progress of Astronomy. We shall not, however, in the present article at least, reach the period to which it relates. The volume of Sir G. C. Lewis is remarkable, first, as the work of her Majesty's late Secretary of War, and, secondly, as displaying the diligent research and care observable in all the productions of his pen. It adds nothing new, however, to the great histories of Bailly and Delambre. Indeed, in the History of the Inductive Sciences by the erudite Dr. Whewell, there is little, if anything, pertaining to the rise and progress of Astronomy, which may not be found in the great works just mentioned. We owe him, nevertheless, a debt of gratitude for the delightful manner in which he has served up the History of Astronomy for the general reader. If any one would, however, master the history of Astronomy in its details, as well as in its magnificent results, he must give his nights and days to the quartos of Bailly and Delambre.

It is no part of our design, however, to make the above works, or any of them, the subject of the present article. In placing their titles at the head of this paper, we merely wish to notify our readers of the sources from which we have, for the most part, derived our information respecting the Progress of Astronomy, and from which a vast deal more of information may be easily gathered. It is our purpose, at present, merely to glance at a few of the great epochs, or eras of light, in the History of Astronomy.

Nothing would seem, at first view, more remote from human apprehension than Astronomy, or the science of the stars. would suppose that if the great Geometer of the universe had arranged the stars, they would have been disposed in hexagons, or octagons, or in some other regular and beautiful figures. But instead of this, they lie scattered over the heavens as if, by chance, they had been shaken from the fingers of the Almighty.'

Hence it was, perhaps, that Socrates concluded that the gods had purposely concealed from human view, the wonderful art wherewith they had constructed the heavens, and would, therefore, be displeased should mortals presume to pry into the mystery of the material universe. But notwithstanding the apparent impossibility of such knowledge, and the pious admonition of Socrates, it is precisely the mechanism of the heavens into which the mind of man has presumed to pry with the most inextinguishable curiosity; and it is precisely in this magnificent field of investigation, that its most splendid triumphs have been achieved.

Nor should we so much wonder at this, when we consider the visible glory of the heavens. There is, indeed, a mysterious charm in this majestic fabric of the world around us and above us, which, in all ages and in all climes, has attracted the gaze, and fired the imagination, of every devout admirer of nature's glorious forms.. Even those who, like Lucretius, believed that sun, moon, and stars, are no larger than they seem to be, were still smitten with the indescribable magnificence and beauty of the scene which the nocturnal heavens present. Regarded merely as appendages and ornaments of the earth, there is still a fascination in the shining orbs above us, which enchains the reason, and exalts the fancy, wherever these are found alive to the beautiful and the sublime. The ancient poet might well have exclaimed with the modern :

Beautiful!

How beautiful is all this visible world!
How glorious in its action and itself!

High though his feelings may have risen, the ancient poet could have contemplated only the outside or surface glory of the world. His views with respect to the appalling magnitude, and the deep internal beauty, of the material universe, were necessarily low and defective. One of the Roman poets, for example, represents their army, while in Portugal, as having heard the sun hiss as he went down in the bosom of the ocean.

'Audiit hurculeo tridentem gurgite solem.'

There were travellers, too, in those ancient times, who talked

of a vast cavity in the East, whence the sun is heard to issue every morning with an insufferable noise. Puerile as such notions now seem to us, they were naturally entertained before the human mind had been enlightened by the science of astronomy, or its conceptions enlarged by even one glimpse of the inconceivable grandeur of the creation.

If, in the time of Lucan, the Roman poet just referred to, the science of astronomy existed in the germ merely, it now appears in the expanded blossom. Or if it was then the smallest of all seeds, it has now become the greatest of all trees, which has struck its roots to the centre of the earth, and spread its branches abroad in the heavens. Or again, if we may change the figure, the science of astronomy, having become the most perfect of all the systems of physical truth, now forms, by far, the proudest monument of human genius the world has ever seen, or is ever likely to see. By the concurrent labors of a long succession of illustrious men, extending through different ages and nations, this sublime monument has gradually risen from its broad basis, until its lofty pinnacle is now seen glittering among the stars. A brief sketch an exceedingly brief sketch of the principal stages in the progress of this stupendous work, and of the gigantic intellects by which it has been reared, is all that can be anticipated in the course of the ensuing reflections.

Not to fatigue the reader's attention with the comparatively dry details of the Chaldean, the Egyptian, the Chinese, and the Indian astronomies, we shall proceed at once to that of the ancient Greeks, from whom the science has descended to modern times. The astronomy of Greece begins with Thales, and the philosophers of the Ionian school, which was founded by him six hundred years before the Christian era. Thales is the first who is known to have propagated a scientific knowledge of astronomy among the Greeks. He taught them the movements of the sun and moon; he explained the inequality of the days and nights; and he showed the Greek sailor, who had only observed the great bear, that the pole-star is a far surer guide over the wide waste of waters. But that which rendered him more celebrated than any thing else, was the prediction of a solar eclipse. For easy as it is to calculate an eclipse at the present

day, the astronomer who could, at that early age of the world, merely predict such an event, was regarded more as a god than as a man. Hence it is that Pliny, having mentioned the name of Thales in connection with that of Hipparchus, bursts into one of his fine strains of enthusiastic praise. Great men!' says he, 'elevated above the common standard of human nature, by discovering the laws which celestial occurrences obey, and by freeing the wretched mind of man from the fear which eclipses inspired. Hail to you and to your genius, interpreters of heaven, worthy recipients of the laws of the universe, authors of principles which connect gods and men!' Hence also the admiration of Josephus, who calls astronomers the sons of God.' Next to Thales, Pythagoras, who founded the school of Crotona, about five hundred years before Christ, was the grand luminary of astronomical science in ancient Greece. Whether he reflected the science of the East, or shone by an inherent and original splendor of his own, we are amazed at the extent and the sublimity of his views. His name is forever associated with the true system of the universe. For he is the first, at least among the Greeks, who maintained that the sun is the centre of the planetary orbits, around which the solar system revolves. In one word, he is the first Greek astronomer who is known to have taught the system which now immortalizes the name of Copernicus. It was Pythagoras, too, who conceived the sublime idea that the planets are inhabited, and that each star which twinkles in the immensity of space is a sun like our own, and the centre of a splendid retinue of planetary worlds.

It has always seemed wonderful to us, that after the true system of the universe had been broached, and embraced by a large school of philosophers, it should have passed away, and sunk into almost total oblivion. Various causes may be assigned for this strange fatality of the Pythagorean scheme; but the chief cause, no doubt, is to be found in the domination of the Aristotelian philosophy. It is to the authority of Aristotle's mighty name, no less than to the force of his deceptive arguments, that we should ascribe the temporary downfall and oblivion of the true system of the world.

If the opinion of Sir William Hamilton be just, that 'Aris

totle stands the Copernicus and Kepler and Newton of the intellectual world', his most enthusiastic admirers should be satisfied with such exalted praise. He is certainly neither the Copernicus, nor the Kepler, nor the Newton, of the material world. Hence, if he were all of these to the philosophy of mind, then may the metaphysician crown him with glory and honor; he certainly deserves little at the hands of the astronomer. For in this department of knowledge, he not only extinguished the lights, which his predecessors had kindled, but he laid down laws and maxims which would have made the universe a profound enigma for all time to come, and the science of astronomy an eternal puzzle. His philosophic dream, that it becomes such divine objects as the heavenly bodies are, to move always with a uniform velocity, and that therefore they never move slower or faster, is a fair specimen of the spirit and manner in which. he determined the most important questions pertaining to the order of the universe. The scholastic jargon, too, by which he affected to demonstrate that the planets must revolve in perfect circles, is one of the most remarkable instances on record of a great intellect striving to appear profoundly learned on a subject, in regard to which it knew-just exactly nothing. The truth is, that Aristotle did not address himself in right good earnest to study the world which God had made; but he came with his matter, and his privations, and his forms, to show how it must have been made. Hence darkness was the result, and his errors

were legion.

Yet with all his errors, Aristotle had one true astronomical idea. He maintained the spherical form of the earth. Though this doctrine had been taught before his time; yet is it so distinctly conceived by him, and so strongly argued, that he almost deserves the credit of an original discoverer. From the shadow of the earth, as seen projected on the moon during a lunar eclipse, and from the gradual elevation of the stars toward the north or south as we approach them; he inferred the spherical form of the earth. Better arguments have not since been invented; and better it is not easy to conceive.

We can not even allude to all the names which adorn the annals of astronomy. We shall, however, in passing, mention