An introduction to astronomy: designed as a text-book for the use of students in college. By Denison Olmsted ...

SYSTiE IOF o:TtIIS OW0T11. -30!
the Pleiadci anlld the bahands of Orion," are beaOtifully allud"ed
to in tioe 1Book of'Job, -.. ]..lipses;. Pythagoras k ntew bot.l tole caules of eclipses
and how td 46predict.tilem;:X not indeed in the accuatle mnalnner
now. emipldoy.cd, but by means of tihe Saros (Art. 233).
38. Pythiagoras: hlad: divined the, truc systelm of the world,
holding tflathe. sun, nd not tile eart!h (as:was. generally ]leld
tby thl lanqicnts, vclcn yfor many tr ars after Pyttlagoras), is; tahe
contoraroln(d Whichl all thlel pt-a ts:revolve, and that thle stars
are1 so many suns, each the center of a system like our own.t{':Alngleo:. soer tlhings, he kncw that tlxc ca arth is: rolund; that its
aurft9 is- naturally dividcd into fiveo zones; and thlat the ecliptic. is inclined to to eo orte c At oalso held that the a.carth
revolvcs3 (lailyonu its~ axis' ald- yarlyb around theC sun;; that tht
galaxy is an a.scsentblagd of small stars.;. -and thiat it is tlo same
lhninary, namllely,'Ve.us, that constitutes both the mornillng
and the evening star, whereas all the ancientsl before liml had
supposed that e;ach was a separate )lanlct, andit accordingly thlo
morning star was called Lucifer, ald.the evening Star' Ifesper11. li:e ell(ld also that. thte pllaets werel inhabited, a ndceven
went so fat r: to-. calculate:the, size of some of the animals in
tlle mloonl.~ ]?Pythlagoras was so great-an cntllhusiast it music,
thlat lle nIot only assigned to it a: conspicuoltus pluace in his system
of educdation, i)ut;t:tCvn supposed tol heavenly bodies.tflhetselves to 1)t arranged at distlances corresponldinlg to tho diatonic
scale, and imlagined thlm to pursule it)cir sublime march to
notes created by, thtei own harmltlonious miovemltents, called Vthe
"mullsic of thoe spltecs's,;" tbut le.maintained that this ele-stfial
colcert, though l oud aInd grand, is. not auldiblo to the fceble
organs of mran, biut only to the gods...
44:J. iitt few exceptions,thowover, thle opinions of Pytiagoras o) theo Systeiml of thle World, wereG founded in: trltl. Yet
tlhey cre rejectedC.by Aristotle and by most succeedilng astron0111% doyvli: to the time of, Copernicus, and in. their place was
sulstitlted: the doctrine of VCrystallino SpAieres, first. taulght by,...........................~~..:......................................................................................................
o long's Astronomy, ii., p. 671.
f- Library of Useful Knowledgo, I[iEtory of A:.9ronomy.
L ong's Ast., ii., p. 673. ~ fdinl.: Eucyclopi'dia.