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... be this. -- No one, we are persuaded, means to reason in this matter against the authority of the Mosaic history, not even the philosophers whom the editor views with so suspicious an eye: But the Hebrew text having fixed the renovation of the human race to the year 2348 (see BLAIR'S Chronology) before the Christian era; and all deductions that depend on numbers, or on a series of numbers contained in an ancient manuscript, being subject to considerable uncertainty from the chances of interpolation and corruption; it is therefore reasonable, in an inquiry into the origin of nations, to state the facts from all different quarters, as far as they are known, supposing them too to be subject to uncertainty from like causes; and taking care, in the inquiry, to exclude all dogmatism and partiality. It is probable that, in this way, a mean result may be obtained nearer to the truth, than any single one that we are in possession of. The infallibility of the inspired writings does by no means preclude this appeal; because these writings, especially in what regards numerical expression, must partake of that uncertainty, which passing repeatedly through the hands of ignorant and careless transcribers, has a tendency to produce. It seems reasonable, in such a case, that all the evidence which can be brought forward, should be examined; leaving it with the great jury of mankind to determine the weight that is due to the testimony of each of the witnesses adduced, and the mean result of the whole united evidence. Why should not antiquaries and scholars do as astronomers and mathematicians are wont to do, where there is a chance of error?
They bring forward the observations they have made, or the measures they have taken, ascribing to each of them a weight proportional, as nearly as they can estimate, to its accuracy; and they then take the mean of all, as the result nearest to the truth. This is what we wish to do on the present occasion. Take from all the different sources of information, the best result you can obtain; take no care, while you are doing so, of its consistency with other results, but let each of them answer for itself. When this process is fairly and extensively performed, let the mean be struck as in the cases above referred to; and there is very little doubt that a result will be obtained, which will detect the corruptions, from which neither the texts of sacred or profane historians can always be exempted. Agreeably to this rule, we go on to state several arguments, leading to results that differ considerably from those of CUVIER, but that appear to us very deserving of attention. With a view of reducing the period of the great catastrophe, so often alluded to, to a date as recent as possible, CUVIER endeavors to take off the force of such facts as would carry back that catastrophe to a period somewhat more remote.
MACROBIUS, says he, assures us, that collections of observations of eclipses made in Egypt, were preserved, which presupposed uninterrupted labor for at least 1200 years before the reign of ALEXANDER. It is said, too, by SIMPLICIUS, in his commentary on ARISTOTLE, that some astronomical observations of the Chaldeans were sent by CALLISTHENES to that philosopher, which reached back 1903 years from the year 331 before Christ, at which time Babylon was taken by ALEXANDE; which therefore goes back almost within a century of the common epoch of the Deluge. To both these facts, it is objected, that if such observations had existed, how comes it that PTOLEMY, to whom they must have been so extremely valuable, makes use of none that go back farther than the era of Nabonassar, 747 years before Christ? There is, however, a circumstance, that ought to be taken into account, before the relations of MACROBIUS and SIMPLICIUS are entirely set aside.
To an astronomer like Ptolemy, who was endeavoring to settle the mean motions of the heavenly bodies, no observation could be of any use, of which the date was not fixed with very great precision. Now, accuracy of date was a matter in which these ancient observations were most likely to prove defective. An exact reckoning of time, by which the interval between remote events could be correctly measured, was very long of being obtained; and men had observed the heavens for a great while, before they could mark with accuracy the dates of their observations. The observations of the Chaldeans, therefore, might be very authentic; as facts, they might be infinitely valuable: but they might be of no use at all to an astronomer, who was merely computing tables of the motions of the sun and the planets. There is many a curious and important observation, both in ancient and in modern times, that would have been rejected as useless by DELAMBRE and BURKHARDT, in the formation of those astronomical tables, by which they have lately merited the gratitude of the scientific world. The same was the case with PTOLEMY; and to find that he makes no mention of certain ancient observations, affords no argument at all against their existence, or against his knowledge of them.
Again, our author endeavors to invalidate the argument which derives a presumption of the great antiquity of civilization and scientific acquirement in India and Chaldea, from the fact, that in these countries there was great knowledge in astronomy; as, of the length of the year, the precession of the equinoxes, the relative motions of the sun and moon, & c. 1000 or 1200 years at least before the beginning of the Christian era. It is argued, that the beginning of astronomical observation must have preceded that date by many centuries. "But to explain all this, " it is said, "Without the necessity of any prodigious antiquity, it may be remarked, that a nation may well be expected to make rapid progress in any particular science, that has no other to attend to; and that, with the Chaldeans especially, the perpetual serenity and clearness of their sky, the pastoral life which they led, and the peculiar superstition to which they were addicted, rendered the stars a general object of attention. They had also colleges, or societies, of their most respectable men, appointed to make astronomical observations, and to put them upon record. Let us suppose also, that among so many persons who had nothing else to do, there were two or three possessed of singular talents for the study of geometrical science; and every thing known to that people might easily have been accomplished in a very few centuries. " The position laid down here, that a nation may make great progress in one science, which has only one to attend to, seems not very conformable to what has occurred, or to what, from the nature of the human mind, might be expected to occur in the history of science.
The time when knowledge has advanced fastest, has been, when it was pursued in many different branches; and nothing seems more certain, that that one science can never make great progress when it stands alone, and is separate from the rest. The astronomer requires the assistance of the mechanic and the optician; if he is destitute of their help, and if his instruments are very imperfect, there is nothing but time that can bring out any valuable result from his observations. In the absence of accurate instruments and exact observation, it was only great length of time that could make it possible to discover the long periods and the slow motions with which, as far back as eleven or twelve hundred years before our era, we find that astronomers were acquainted. When two observations are compared together, the length of time between them will stand in the place of accuracy, the errors bearing a less proportion to the whole. If, therefore, we find a tolerably accurate estimate of the mean motions of the heavenly bodies, in the possession of a people not furnished with good instruments, we may be assured that the antiquity of observation has supplied the place of such instruments, and that age has given a value to facts, which, without it, they could not have possessed. In this, we have very little doubt that all astronomers will agree.
CUVIER however proceeds, "Three hundred years did not intervene between COOPERNICUS and DE LA PLACE, the celebrated author of Mechanique Celeste; yet some wish to believe that the Hindoos must have had many thousand years to discover their astronomical rules. " But why did so little time intervene between Copernicus and La Place? Why has the progress of science been so rapid in the comparatively short interval that elapsed between these two great men? Precisely because astronomy was not the only science then cultivated; because all the sciences, on the contrary, were coming forward, and advancing together with a uniformity and steadiness of which there is no former example. the labors of every scientific man were felt as an assistance and encouragement by all the rest; a general spirit of activity spread itself into every department, and the powers of the mind seemed raised to a higher level.
The ardor and patience necessary to discovery, and characteristic of genius, can hardly be produced without the example and the sympathy of numbers, animated by the same motives, and zealous in pursuing the same objects. The benefit that one science may receive from the culture of another, even the most remote, cannot be better exemplified, than by the circumstances that have given occasion to the work before us, where the Anatomist affords such valuable assistance to the Geologist, and brings the structure of the animal body to give such important information concerning the revolutions of the globe. the bones of the Megatherion, or the Mastodonton, two hundred years ago, might have given occasion to a new chapter in the Osteology of the Giants; but would have added nothing to the stock of real knowledge. In the hands of a man of science, and a philosopher, they have struck out one of the greatest lights that has yet been cast on the natural history of the globe. It is certain, then, that the moments of most rapid progress in any science, are those in which all the sciences are advancing, and all supporting one another. When they are separate, their progress is unavoidably slow; and nothing can be more fallacious, than to take their rate of advancement in a state of high improvement, as a measure of the progress they might be expected to have made in the infancy of knowledge.
In the prosecution of this argument, an attack is next made, as indeed it could not fail to be, on the antiquity of the astronomy of India. Our author is of opinion, that the proofs which have appeared conclusive in favor of that antiquity, are of little weight, and have most of them been satisfactorily refuted. He quotes particularly the Systeme du Monde, and the Paper of BENTLEY in the Asiatic Researches. With respect to the first, it is true, that LA PLACE has shown, that in as much as concerns the mean motion of Jupiter, there is a very recent, and well as a very ancient period, to which the determination of that motion, in the Indian Tables, may be referred. Of course, he refers them to the most recent; and if there were not a multitude of facts pointing to the other, we should think the latter conclusion extremely reasonable. But, circumstanced as things are, we think it can be shown, in a satisfactory manner, that the ancient era is the more probable of the two.
AS to BENTLEY'S argument, it has in reality been refuted by anticipation in the Astronomie Orientale more than once. When the astronomical era of the Can-you is said to have been computed backward, the question always recurs, How came the mean motions of the Sun and Moon to be known, with such accuracy, than in calculating for an interval of more than 4000 years, they should agree with the best tables of modern astronomy? The tedious and obscure argumentation of Mr. BENTLEY never brings us nearer to the solution of this problem.
Indeed, the number of independent arguments by which M. BAILLY has established the reality of the epoch 3102 A. C. is such, that it seems better ascertained than any date not within the sphere of regular historical record.
We cannot now enter more fully on this subject. But though the tide of opinion seems, for some time past, to have set strongly against the high antiquity of the sciences of the East, it does not appear that the main arguments of the Historian of astronomy have ever been refuted. Conformably, therefore, to the principle laid down above, in settling the remotest point to which the history of our sciences can extend, we would regard the Indian astronomy as one fact, and one that must be allowed considerable weight, when the last result is to be obtained. At the same time it must be allowed, that the early date of that Astronomy, and the usual date of the deluge, may be perfectly reconciled, on the supposition that the former is a fragment of antediluvian science, which had escaped the general destruction. We conclude with observing, that the natural history of the globe has never made a greater step than by the observations and results contained in the great work to which this Preliminary Dissertation belongs. The industry, the skill, and the enlarged views of the author, are entitled to the highest praise; and in differing from him, as to a few of his subordinate conclusions, we hope that we have not failed in the respect due to a man who has laid science under so many and so great obligations.
We observe, in the passages where Astronomy is treated of, that some mistakes have been committed by the translator. Speaking of the Zodiac in the temple at Denver, he makes CUVIER say, "Nothing can be drawn from its division into bands of six signs each, as indicative of the colure's proceeding from the procession of the Equinoxes, " & c. The term, procession for precession, we suppose to be merely a typographical error; but to speak of the colure's proceeding from the precession of the equinoxes, is inaccurate, and indeed absurd. The French is, "La position des colure's resultant de la precession des equinoxes" -- the position of the colure's produced by the precession; for it is the position of the colure's, not the colure's themselves, that is affected by the precession.
In the course of the same sentence, there is another error. Instead of the words, "shows how inaccurate were their observations; " it ought to be, "shows that they had no observed it, " viz. the time in which the beginning of the year travels over the whole of the zodiac. (p. 165). There occur other inaccuracies of this kind; though, on the whole, the translation is well executed.
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