HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY.

41

remarkable objefls in tlie celeftial regions, theSun, the Moon , and the Fixed Stars , are fuffi-ciently connefled with one another by this hypo-thesis. The eclipfes of these two great luminariesare, though not so eaiily calculated, as easily ex-plained, upon this ancient, as upon the modernfyltem. When these early philosophers explainedto their diiciples tire very simple causes of tholedreadful phenomena, it was under the leal ofthe mort facred fecrecy, that they might avoidthe fury of the people, and not incur the impu-tation of impiety, when they thus took from thegods the direction of thole events which were ap-prehended to be the moll terrible tokens of theirimpending vengeance. 1 he obliquity of theecliptic, the consequent changes of the seasons,the vieilli tudes of day and night,-and the differentlengths of both days and nights, in the differentseasons, correspond too , pretty exactly, with thisancient doctrine. And if there had been no otherbodies discoverable in the heavens behdes thé Sun,the Moon , and the Fixed Stars , this old hypothe-sis might have Hood the examination of all ages,and have gone down triumphant to the remoteltpofterity.

If it gained the belief of mankind by its plau-sibility, it attrafled their wonder and admiration ;sentiments that ftill more confirmed their belief,by the novelty and beauty of that view of naturewhich it presented to the imagination. Beforethis fyftem was taught in the world, the earth wasregarded as, what it appears to the eye, a vail,