History of Astronomy Part 1

History of Astronomy.

by George Forbes.

PREFACE

An attempt has been made in these pages to trace the evolution of intellectual thought in the progress of astronomical discovery, and, by recognising the different points of view of the different ages, to give due credit even to the ancients. No one can expect, in a history of astronomy of limited size, to find a treatise on "practical" or on "theoretical astronomy," nor a complete "descriptive astronomy," and still less a book on "speculative astronomy." Something of each of these is essential, however, for tracing the progress of thought and knowledge which it is the object of this History to describe.

The progress of human knowledge is measured by the increased habit of looking at facts from new points of view, as much as by the acc.u.mulation of facts. The mental capacity of one age does not seem to differ from that of other ages; but it is the imagination of new points of view that gives a wider scope to that capacity. And this is c.u.mulative, and therefore progressive. Aristotle viewed the solar system as a geometrical problem; Kepler and Newton converted the point of view into a dynamical one. Aristotle's mental capacity to understand the meaning of facts or to criticise a train of reasoning may have been equal to that of Kepler or Newton, but the point of view was different.

Then, again, new points of view are provided by the invention of new methods in that system of logic which we call mathematics. All that mathematics can do is to a.s.sure us that a statement A is equivalent to statements B, C, D, or is one of the facts expressed by the statements B, C, D; so that we may know, if B, C, and D are true, then A is true.

To many people our inability to understand all that is contained in statements B, C, and D, without the c.u.mbrous process of a mathematical demonstration, proves the feebleness of the human mind as a logical machine. For it required the new point of view imagined by Newton's a.n.a.lysis to enable people to see that, so far as planetary orbits are concerned, Kepler's three laws (B, C, D) were identical with Newton's law of gravitation (A). No one recognises more than the mathematical astronomer this feebleness of the human intellect, and no one is more conscious of the limitations of the logical process called mathematics, which even now has not solved directly the problem of only three bodies.

These reflections, arising from the writing of this History, go to explain the invariable humility of the great mathematical astronomers.

Newton's comparison of himself to the child on the seash.o.r.e applies to them all. As each new discovery opens up, it may be, boundless oceans for investigation, for wonder, and for admiration, the great astronomers, refusing to accept mere hypotheses as true, have founded upon these discoveries a science as exact in its observation of facts as in theories. So it is that these men, who have built up the most sure and most solid of all the sciences, refuse to invite others to join them in vain speculation. The writer has, therefore, in this short History, tried to follow that great master, Airy, whose pupil he was, and the key to whose character was exactness and accuracy; and he recognises that Science is impotent except in her own limited sphere.

It has been necessary to curtail many parts of the History in the attempt--perhaps a hopeless one--to lay before the reader in a limited s.p.a.ce enough about each age to ill.u.s.trate its tone and spirit, the ideals of the workers, the gradual addition of new points of view and of new means of investigation.

It would, indeed, be a pleasure to entertain the hope that these pages might, among new recruits, arouse an interest in the greatest of all the sciences, or that those who have handled the theoretical or practical side might be led by them to read in the original some of the cla.s.sics of astronomy. Many students have much compa.s.sion for the schoolboy of to-day, who is not allowed the luxury of learning the art of reasoning from him who still remains pre-eminently its greatest exponent, Euclid. These students pity also the man of to-morrow, who is not to be allowed to read, in the original Latin of the brilliant Kepler, how he was able--by observations taken from a moving platform, the earth, of the directions of a moving object, Mars--to deduce the exact shape of the path of each of these planets, and their actual positions on these paths at any time. Kepler's masterpiece is one of the most interesting books that was ever written, combining wit, imagination, ingenuity, and certainty.

Lastly, it must be noted that, as a History of England cannot deal with the present Parliament, so also the unfinished researches and untested hypotheses of many well-known astronomers of to-day cannot be included among the records of the History of Astronomy. The writer regrets the necessity that thus arises of leaving without mention the names of many who are now making history in astronomical work.

G. F.

_August 1st, 1909._

BOOK I. THE GEOMETRICAL PERIOD

1. PRIMITIVE ASTRONOMY AND ASTROLOGY.

The growth of intelligence in the human race has its counterpart in that of the individual, especially in the earliest stages.

Intellectual activity and the development of reasoning powers are in both cases based upon the acc.u.mulation of experiences, and on the comparison, cla.s.sification, arrangement, and nomenclature of these experiences. During the infancy of each the succession of events can be watched, but there can be no _ priori_ antic.i.p.ations.

Experience alone, in both cases, leads to the idea of cause and effect as a principle that seems to dominate our present universe, as a rule for predicting the course of events, and as a guide to the choice of a course of action. This idea of cause and effect is the most potent factor in developing the history of the human race, as of the individual.

In no realm of nature is the principle of cause and effect more conspicuous than in astronomy; and we fall into the habit of thinking of its laws as not only being unchangeable in our universe, but necessary to the conception of any universe that might have been subst.i.tuted in its place. The first inhabitants of the world were compelled to accommodate their acts to the daily and annual alternations of light and darkness and of heat and cold, as much as to the irregular changes of weather, attacks of disease, and the fortune of war. They soon came to regard the influence of the sun, in connection with light and heat, as a cause. This led to a search for other signs in the heavens. If the appearance of a comet was sometimes noted simultaneously with the death of a great ruler, or an eclipse with a scourge of plague, these might well be looked upon as causes in the same sense that the veering or backing of the wind is regarded as a cause of fine or foul weather.

For these reasons we find that the earnest men of all ages have recorded the occurrence of comets, eclipses, new stars, meteor showers, and remarkable conjunctions of the planets, as well as plagues and famines, floods and droughts, wars and the deaths of great rulers. Sometimes they thought they could trace connections which might lead them to say that a comet presaged famine, or an eclipse war.

Even if these men were sometimes led to evolve laws of cause and effect which now seem to us absurd, let us be tolerant, and gratefully acknowledge that these astrologers, when they suggested such "working hypotheses," were laying the foundations of observation and deduction.

If the ancient Chaldaeans gave to the planetary conjunctions an influence over terrestrial events, let us remember that in our own time people have searched for connection between terrestrial conditions and periods of unusual prevalence of sun spots; while De la Rue, Loewy, and Balfour Stewart[1] thought they found a connection between sun-spot displays and the planetary positions. Thus we find scientific men, even in our own time, responsible for the belief that storms in the Indian Ocean, the fertility of German vines, famines in India, and high or low Nile-floods in Egypt follow the planetary positions.

And, again, the desire to foretell the weather is so laudable that we cannot blame the ancient Greeks for announcing the influence of the moon with as much confidence as it is affirmed in Lord Wolseley's _Soldier's Pocket Book_.

Even if the scientific spirit of observation and deduction (astronomy) has sometimes led to erroneous systems for predicting terrestrial events (astrology), we owe to the old astronomer and astrologer alike the deepest grat.i.tude for their diligence in recording astronomical events. For, out of the scanty records which have survived the destructive acts of fire and flood, of monarchs and mobs, we have found much that has helped to a fuller knowledge of the heavenly motions than was possible without these records.

So Hipparchus, about 150 B.C., and Ptolemy a little later, were able to use the observations of Chaldaean astrologers, as well as those of Alexandrian astronomers, and to make some discoveries which have helped the progress of astronomy in all ages. So, also, Mr. Cowell[2]

has examined the marks made on the baked bricks used by the Chaldaeans for recording the eclipses of 1062 B.C. and 762 B.C.; and has thereby been enabled, in the last few years, to correct the lunar tables of Hansen, and to find a more accurate value for the secular acceleration of the moon's longitude and the node of her orbit than any that could be obtained from modern observations made with instruments of the highest precision.

So again, Mr. Hind [3] was enabled to trace back the period during which Halley's comet has been a member of the solar system, and to identify it in the Chinese observations of comets as far back as 12 B.C. Cowell and Cromellin extended the date to 240 B.C. In the same way the comet 1861.i. has been traced back in the Chinese records to 617 A.D. [4]

The theoretical views founded on Newton's great law of universal gravitation led to the conclusion that the inclination of the earth's equator to the plane of her orbit (the obliquity of the ecliptic) has been diminishing slowly since prehistoric times; and this fact has been confirmed by Egyptian and Chinese observations on the length of the shadow of a vertical pillar, made thousands of years before the Christian era, in summer and winter.

There are other reasons why we must be tolerant of the crude notions of the ancients. The historian, wishing to give credit wherever it may be due, is met by two difficulties. Firstly, only a few records of very ancient astronomy are extant, and the authenticity of many of these is open to doubt. Secondly, it is very difficult to divest ourselves of present knowledge, and to appreciate the originality of thought required to make the first beginnings.

With regard to the first point, we are generally dependent upon histories written long after the events. The astronomy of Egyptians, Babylonians, and a.s.syrians is known to us mainly through the Greek historians, and for information about the Chinese we rely upon the researches of travellers and missionaries in comparatively recent times. The testimony of the Greek writers has fortunately been confirmed, and we now have in addition a ma.s.s of facts translated from the original sculptures, papyri, and inscribed bricks, dating back thousands of years.

In attempting to appraise the efforts of the beginners we must remember that it was natural to look upon the earth (as all the first astronomers did) as a circular plane, surrounded and bounded by the heaven, which was a solid vault, or hemisphere, with its concavity turned downwards. The stars seemed to be fixed on this vault; the moon, and later the planets, were seen to crawl over it. It was a great step to look on the vault as a hollow sphere carrying the sun too. It must have been difficult to believe that at midday the stars are shining as brightly in the blue sky as they do at night. It must have been difficult to explain how the sun, having set in the west, could get back to rise in the east without being seen _if_ it was always the same sun. It was a great step to suppose the earth to be spherical, and to ascribe the diurnal motions to its rotation.

Probably the greatest step ever made in astronomical theory was the placing of the sun, moon, and planets at different distances from the earth instead of having them stuck on the vault of heaven. It was a transition from "flatland" to a s.p.a.ce of three dimensions.

Great progress was made when systematic observations began, such as following the motion of the moon and planets among the stars, and the inferred motion of the sun among the stars, by observing their _heliacal risings_--i.e., the times of year when a star would first be seen to rise at sunrise, and when it could last be seen to rise at sunset. The grouping of the stars into constellations and recording their places was a useful observation. The theoretical prediction of eclipses of the sun and moon, and of the motions of the planets among the stars, became later the highest goal in astronomy.

To not one of the above important steps in the progress of astronomy can we a.s.sign the author with certainty. Probably many of them were independently taken by Chinese, Indian, Persian, Tartar, Egyptian, Babylonian, a.s.syrian, Phoenician, and Greek astronomers. And we have not a particle of information about the discoveries, which may have been great, by other peoples--by the Druids, the Mexicans, and the Peruvians, for example.

We do know this, that all nations required to have a calendar. The solar year, the lunar month, and the day were the units, and it is owing to their incommensurability that we find so many calendars proposed and in use at different times. The only object to be attained by comparing the chronologies of ancient races is to fix the actual dates of observations recorded, and this is not a part of a history of astronomy.

In conclusion, let us bear in mind the limited point of view of the ancients when we try to estimate their merit. Let us remember that the first astronomy was of two dimensions; the second astronomy was of three dimensions, but still purely geometrical. Since Kepler's day we have had a dynamical astronomy.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Trans. R. S. E., xxiii. 1864, p. 499, _On Sun Spots_, etc., by B. Stewart. Also Trans. R. S. 1860-70. Also Prof. Ernest Brown, in _R. A. S. Monthly Notices_, 1900.

[2] _R. A. S. Monthly Notices_, Sup.; 1905.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHALDaeAN BAKED BRICK OR TABLET, _Obverse and reverse sides_, Containing record of solar eclipse, 1062 B.C., used lately by Cowell for rendering the lunar theory more accurate than was possible by finest modern observations. (British Museum collection, No. 35908.)]

[3] _R. A. S. Monthly Notices_, vol. x., p. 65.

[4] R. S. E. Proc., vol. x., 1880.

2. ANCIENT ASTRONOMY--THE CHINESE AND CHALDaeANS.

The last section must have made clear the difficulties the way of a.s.signing to the ancient nations their proper place in the development of primitive notions about astronomy. The fact that some alleged observations date back to a period before the Chinese had invented the art of writing leads immediately to the question how far tradition can be trusted.

Our first detailed knowledge was gathered in the far East by travellers, and by the Jesuit priests, and was published in the eighteenth century. The Asiatic Society of Bengal contributed translations of Brahmin literature. The two princ.i.p.al sources of knowledge about Chinese astronomy were supplied, first by Father Souciet, who in 1729 published _Observations Astronomical, Geographical, Chronological, and Physical_, drawn from ancient Chinese books; and later by Father Moyriac-de-Mailla, who in 1777-1785 published _Annals of the Chinese Empire, translated from Tong-Kien-Kang-Mou_.

Bailly, in his _Astronomie Ancienne_ (1781), drew, from these and other sources, the conclusion that all we know of the astronomical learning of the Chinese, Indians, Chaldaeans, a.s.syrians, and Egyptians is but the remnant of a far more complete astronomy of which no trace can be found.

Delambre, in his _Histoire de l'Astronomie Ancienne_ (1817), ridicules the opinion of Bailly, and considers that the progress made by all of these nations is insignificant.

It will be well now to give an idea of some of the astronomy of the ancients not yet entirely discredited. China and Babylon may be taken as typical examples.