250. The above 11 minutes 3 seconds, by which the Civil or Julian year exceeds the Solar, amounts to 11 days in 1433 years: and so much our seasons have fallen back with respect to the days of the months, since the time of the _Nicene_ Council in _A.D._ 325, and therefore in order to bring back all the Fasts and Festivals to the days then settled, it was requisite to suppress 11 nominal days. And that the same seasons might be kept to the same times of the year for the future, to leave out the Bissextile day in _February_ at the end of every century of years not divisible by 4; reckoning them only common years, as the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, _viz._ the years 1700, 1800, 1900, _&c._ because a day intercalated every fourth year was too much, and retaining the Bissextile-day at the end of those Centuries of years which are divisible by 4, as the 16th, 20th and 24th Centuries; _viz._ the years 1600, 2000, 2400, _&c._ Otherwise, in length of time the seasons would have been quite reversed with regard to the months of the years; though it would have required near 23,783 years to have brought about such a total change. If the Earth had made exactly 365-1/4 diurnal rotations on its axis, whilst it revolved from any Equinoctial or Solstitial point to the same again, the Civil and Solar years would always have kept pace together; and the style would never have needed any alteration. [Sidenote: The Precession of the Equinoctial Points.] 251. Having already mentioned the cause of the Precession of the Equinoctial points in the heavens, § 246, which occasions a flow deviation of the earth’s axis from its parallelism, and thereby a change of the declination of the Stars from the Equator, together with a slow apparent motion of the Stars forward with respect to the Signs of the Ecliptic; we shall now describe the Phenomena by a Diagram. [Sidenote: Fig. V.]