136] AST AST several female impostors, who have acquired a degree of celebrity among their own sex, by the acci- dental fulfillment of .some of their frivolous predictions. The origin of so absurd a pursuit, may be ascribed chiefly to an al- most general negleet of studying, in schools, those branches of na- tural science, which explain the phenomena taking place in the dif- ferent kingdoms of nature ; and to that singular eagcri which is obvious, not only among ali unci- vilized nations, hut likewise, among the lower classes of the most en- lightened people, far acquiring a knowledge of future events, while they neglect their present welfare ar.d safety. — See Divixatiox 3 Kf'CROMANCY. ASt RONOMY is considered as the most sublime of all the soiences, and implies a knowledge of the heavenly bodies, with regard to their, respective magnitude, moti- ons, distances, fee; ( and of the natural causes bv which these phe- nomena are produced. Jt is not improbable, that Adam and his immediate progeny, the antedilu- vians, possessed a slight knowledge of astronomy. On the building of the tower of Babel, Noah: is sup- posed to have retired with his chil- li ren born after the flood, to the north-eastern part of Asia, where his descendants peopled the vast empire of C>ina ; and this, in opinion of Dr. Long, accounts for the early cultivation of astronomy by the Chinese. Mr. Bailly, who has taken great pains to inves- tigate the progress of the Indians, i-* of opinion, that the first epoch ot th-ir astronomy commences with the conjunction of the sun and moon, which took place 3102 years before the Christian sera. Even the Americans, and especially the Mexicans, were not altogether destitute of astronomical know- ledge. But the Chaldeans and Egyptians were the first nations, that became, in this respect, con- spicuous in ancient : and it is doubtful, whether the Phoeni- cians acquired, the rudiments of this science from die former, or the latter : though we are indebted to their enterprizing merchants, who first applied it to the useful and important purposes of naviga- tion. Its origin among the Greeks is unknown: Hbsiojd and Homkk were the earliest writers who men- tion astronomical facts ; but the science was afterwards, though not considerably, improved by Thales, Ax ax 1 m a xo k a, Pythagoras, Arcti'mjoks, and Hipparchus, who made the first specification of the. fixed stars ; and lastly, by PioLi.MY, whose erroneous sys- tem is now exploded. Among the Arabs, who adopted the present arithmetical characters from the Indians, Geber laid the foundation for our modern trigono- metry ; which Mexelaus, the Greek, about the year po after Christ, had ineffectually attempted to establish, in his three excellent books on spherics, even after that doctrine had been rendered more simple by the labours and improve- ments of Ptolemy. The Emperor Eked eric II. of Germany, who was a great patron of the sciences, in J230, also reviv- ed the study of astronomy in Eu- rope. Thence arose Johx Hali- fax, Clavjus, Boger Bacon,, Yitlllio, and the indefatigable Purbach, who died in 146l, when only thirty-eight years of age : he was succeeded by his ce~ lebrated
