The real eclipses, recorded by Confucius in his Chronicle of the kingdom of Lou, commence only 1400 years after this, in the 776th before Christ, and scarcely half a century earlier than those of the Chaldeans related by Ptolemy. So true is it, that the nations which escaped at the same time from the general catastrophe, also arrived about the same period, when their circumstances have been similar, at the same degree of civilization. Now, it might be thought, from the identity of the names of the Chinese astronomers in different reigns (they appear, according to the Chou-king, to have all been named _Hi_ and _Ho_), that, at this remote epoch, their profession was hereditary in China, as it was in India, Egypt, and Babylon. The only Chinese observation of any antiquity, which has nothing in itself to prove its want of authenticity, is that of the shadow made by _Tcheou-kong_ about 1100 years before Christ; and even it is far from being correct[211]. Hence our readers may conclude, that the inferences drawn from the alleged perfection of astronomical science among ancient nations, is not more conclusive in favour of the excessive antiquity of those nations, than the testimonies which they have adduced in reference to themselves. But had this astronomy been more perfect, what would it prove? Has the progress been calculated which this science ought to make among nations who were not in any degree in possession of others; to whom the serenity of the sky, the necessities of the pastoral or agricultural life, and their superstitious ideas, would render the stars an object of general attention; where colleges, or societies of the most respectable men among them, were charged with keeping a register of interesting phenomena, and transmitting their memory; and where, from the hereditary nature of the profession, the children were brought up from the cradle in the knowledge of facts ascertained by their parents? Supposing that, among the numerous individuals of whom the cultivation of astronomy was the sole occupation, there should happen to be one or two possessed of extraordinary talents for geometry, all the knowledge acquired by these nations might be attained in a few centuries. Since the time of the Chaldeans, real astronomy has only had two eras, that of the Alexandrian school, which lasted 400 years, and that of our own times, which has not existed so long. The learned period of the Arabians scarcely added any thing to it; and the other ages have been mere blanks with regard to it. Three hundred years did not intervene between Copernicus and the author of the _Mecanique Céleste_; and can it be believed that the Indians required thousands of years to arrive at their crude theories? _The Astronomical Monuments left by the Ancients do not bear the excessively remote dates which have been attributed to them._