THE MINISTER AT WAR ON ANCIENT ASTRONOMY.*
THAT a Cabinet Minister should write more than one work of research while the official harness is actually on his back, is an event of mark and novelty : such as was not in time of yore, "when this old cap was new." Some may remember that Canning, after extracting a smart speech against Catholic Emancipation out of a pamphlet by the Bishop of Exeter, actually published it. Beyond such a stroie of politics the book-making of a minister could then hardly go. It was the maxim of the time that professional men— and political eminences were counted among them—must not signalize themselves out of their professions. So James Smith threw the blame and fame of his part of the "Rejected Addresses" upon his brother Horace, who carried double all his life—some say more. We have heard of a physician, a splendid performer on the violin, who never dared to play in company. And so on, through many an instance public and private. Now the real truth is that a great many men of strong power cannot relax in trifles: their bow must be more than unbent; it must be strained the opposite way. And of these is Sir G. Lewis, who, we will venture to say, has often found his evening researches a better preparation for the secretarial duties of the morning, than he could have made at the Opera or in a festive party.
It would hardly suit our columns to enter upon a detailed criticism. Not because the work is full of scholarship and reference, but because the learning is of that kind which has not a large audience, even among learned men: we mean, not a large audience for its minute details. It is a scholar's survey of that part of the astronomy of the ancients which comes within the grasp of a scholar, and relates to things which he has need to know. We see no reason to suppose that Sir G. Lewis is competent to write on the state or progress of mathematical astronomy; but he has, nevertheless, done what the mathematical historian had no occasion to do, and could not have done well. We may grant that Delambre or Weidler could, with much labour, have put the more popular points before the reader as directly from Greeks and Romans themselves as Sir G. Lewis has done. But it would have cost either of them a new education to have sifted this knowledge in the sieve of the most recent criticism, and to have presented it with all those associated effects of the friction of ,many minds by which the scholar of the past and present distinguishes himself from the scholar of the past. When they come upon the ground which this work takes, it is only to subserve their main object of setting forth the history of the deep science of astronomy ; and the scholar who desires illustration of his own pursuits has but small pickings. Sir G. Lewis has given him, if the phrase be not too antiquated, a bellyful; and, reserving our right to quarrel with any one dish, a meal of excellent and wellcooked food. But valuable as the book is to those who want its especial matter and no more, it is a still more valuable member of a copartnery. We have the very supplement—supplement partaking largely of the nature of introduction—which was wanted to the mathematical historians : supplement of reading, supplement of reference. It is a great compliment to a book to say that it wants a better index ; and this compliment both the author and the indexmaker—be they one or two—have given us ample means of paying. A well-thought work, loaded with referential notes, ought to be indexed to every proper name. The point of contact of the scholar with astronomy is chronology; the year and the months, their origins, changes, and connecting cycles. So much of the book is on these matters that they almost form the staple. When a work is of a new line of argument—using the word in the old sense—the contents and index furnish valuable facts of exposition. By the first we see that the astronomy of the Greeks is discussed from the earliest time to Ptolemy; that the Roman measures of time are treated; that the astronomy of the Babylonians
• An Historical Survey of Me Astronomy of the Ancients. By the Bight Honourable Sir G. C. Lewis. Parker and Son. and Egyptians, the early history and chronology of the Egyptians, the same of the Assyrians, and the navigation of the Plunnicians, are also constituent portions. And though the index be very insufficient, yet it may furnish something better than any general description as to the character of the work. Of the Bun, we find with references, that he " was supposed to rise and set in the ocean; was conceived as driving a chariot ; as a universal witness ; was fabled to return from west to east in a golden goblet ; its place among .the planets." Again, "Moon, the, was conceived as driving a chariot ; her supposed influence on the weather." Prometheus, as "an astronomical observer," has two page references ; Ptolemy, the great astronomer of all, has one. 'We quarrel with none of this, except with the poverty of the index ; a better table of reference would not have altered the notion given of the contents. And it ought to be
i as it is, for the work s intended to bring into prominence the very points which cannot appear in the pages of the mathematical historian.
We believe that Sir G. Lewis is nearly correct in mentioning Costard and Narrien as his only English predecessors ; he ought to have mentioned Rothman's History in the "Library of Useful Knowledge." Costard had very great learning; and Narrien, as Sir G. Lewis notes, was not a sufficient master of Greek. Nevertheless, Narrien's book is precisely the nearest approach which a scholar can read to the mathematical history of the subject. It contains a clear exposition of the theories on which Sir G. Lewis cannot touch; and one who is not deep in high mathematics—if the two adjectives may come together—and has both Lewis and Narrieu, need not regret the want of a Delambre. We speak, of course, only of ancient astronomy.
Seventeen pages are given to the hieroglyphic investigations, with the usual learning and many references. But the name of Young does not occur either in text or note. This is a studied omission of the worst sort of significance, and it has given us a painful sense of possibilities. We do not like it, and we pass on, leaving our cause of dislike as mysterious as that of the omission. We give a practical example of the working of this omission, which, in the case of Young, must be depreciation. Sir G. Lewis quotes Halma's text of Ptolemy, but not his dissertations. These he possibly may not have known ; but how can we tell? This may be a second instance of depreciation.
We recommend our readers not to pass over this book as a survey of astronomy. it would not be wrong to say that chronology, navigation, geography, and astronomy so far as it is forced in by the other subjects, form the contents of the book. How many smaller subjects are casually introduced, it is beyond our power to say. But all is treated in the large print above with a clearness and aptness which bring it within the scope of the better sort of circulating library ; and in the small print below with a width of reference which entitle it to a place on the lower shelves of a scholar's library.
A good specimen of digested collection is seen in the note on a remarkable passage of Plato in the Timrcus. Plato, though in ather places he seems clearly to give the celestial sphere a rotation, yet in this passage gives the earth a rotation about the axis of the sphere. So Aristotle understood him and also other Greeks, who had fair warning in Aristotle's interpretation to look sharply into the matter. But the moderns have found so much difficulty in the supposition of Plato having such a meaning, that they have supposed he only said the earth is wound round the axis, like the thread in a ball. Mr. Grote supposes that Plato gives a material axis to the celestial sphere, and turns both earth and heaven round at once. To the objection that this would not account for the apparent diurnal motion of the heavens, Mr. Grote replies by supposing that Plato had but a confused idea of the consequences of his own theory. Dr. Whewell, though admitting the very great improbability that Aristotle should have misunderstood Plato, sees as great an improbability in Plato having made such a curious blunder. Sir G. Lewis holds by the common interpretation. For ourselves, we are stronger in the belief that both Plato and Aristotle understood Greek than that Plato understood relative motion. We therefore so far defer to Aristotle as to decline to assert any interpretation which assumes that a modern difficulty can be of equal force with his reading of his own countryman.
It is a kind of demand made upon those who notice modern works that they shall themselves become essayists as well as reviewers : ominous words ! They must give their own opinions upon the general handling of the subjects, or they will produce only a mere notice." We have been told of a musical critic who, when asked his opinion of a certain player, replied, "He is a mere trombone." Now, it happened that the trombone was the very instrument played upon; but this criticism was given at a time not yet quite gone by, in the height of which every instrument tried to sound to its neighbour as it would have its neighbour sound to it, and the flute and double bass attempted an exchange of parts. Not only is this kind of criticism applied to articles on books, but to the books themselves : a production perfect in its kind is a "mere" what it was meant to be, because it is nothing else. Now, Sir G. Lewis has written what both is and is not open to the charge of mereness. It is a mere digest of learning, a mere parasite to the history of astronomy, a work which owes its interest and utility to mere goodness of agglomeration. But then it is a new digest: one who wished for such an aggregation might, until now, have been contented with the mere wish. It is that appendage to the complete history of astronomy which the progress of science has taken cate to make it impossible any one should write whose studies have made him full master of the scientific history. And its interest is beyond question, and its utility great. Delambre was an historian of astronomy, who was well versed in Greek. Delambre is cited as a writer who rather gave materials than history ; bat when the materials consist in the account of what one
after another did for the science, these materials make the CZ. The progress of science must be given biographically, or nearly so. In political history, no one can write Napoleon's part without reference to Wellington; or Castlereagh's, without reference to Metternich. But if Kepler and Galileo, or any such pair, be treated in two chapters, one for each, either chapter need contain no more than allusion to the other. We speak especially of the old times, when the giants of science sought their prey each in his own wilderness. The divided association, or association for division, of our own time, introduces the need of some modification of plan; and this is well illustrated by Delambre's works, the structure of which gathers imperfection like a rolling snowball, as he approaches towards his own day. But still it is history.
We take our leave of this work with a high sense of its value and admiration of its author, who has official demands upon his time which are of the most imperious character. We wondered that Sir J. Lubbock could steadily work at the lunar theory, or Mr. Grote at the history of Greece. But a banker has a power of compromise between his professional business and the studies of his leisure which a minister of state is wholly without. Independently of its merits, this work is an honour to its author.
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