“Ancient chronology deduces, from a knowledge and calculation of eclipses, the best established periods in time, that it is possible to obtain: and in ages anterior to regular observations, nothing but obscurity is to be met with. We should not have in the history of nations any uncertainty in dates, if there had always been astronomers. We may perceive, above all, the connexions of astronomy in _The Art of verifying Dates_. It is by an eclipse of the Moon,[28] that we discover the error of date that exists in the vulgar era with respect to the birth of Christ. It is known that Herod was king of Judea, and that there was an eclipse of the moon immediately before the death of that prince: we find this eclipse was in the night, between the 12th and 13th of March, of the fourth year before the vulgar era; so that this era ought to be removed three years back, at least. ----- Footnote 28: Mr. Derham, speaking of the utility resulting from the observation of these phænomena, (in his _Astro-Theology_,) says—“As to the eclipses, whether of sun or moon, they have their excellent uses. The astronomer applies them to considerable services, in his way, and the geographer makes them no less useful in his: the chronologer is enabled, by them, to amend his accounts of time, even of the most ancient days; and so down through all ages: and the mariner, too, can make them serviceable to his purpose, to discover his longitude, to correct his account at sea, and thereby make himself more secure and safe in the untrodden paths of the deep.” W. B. ----- “It is besides from astronomy, that we borrow the division of time in the common transactions of life, and the art of regulating clocks and watches. We may say, that the order and the multiplicity of our affairs, of our duties, our amusements; the attachment to exactness and precision; in short, our habits; all have rendered this measure of time almost indispensable, and placed it among the number of the _desiderata_ of human life. “If, for want of clocks and watches, we should be under the necessity of recurring to meridians and sundials, even this would further prove the advantages derived from astronomical science; since dialling is only an application of spherical trigonometry and astronomy. “Le Sage is displeased with good reason with those, whom an admiration of the stars has carried so far, as that they fancied them to be Deities:[29] but, far from condemning the study of them, he recommends it, for the glory of the Creator.” ----- Footnote 29: