The science of Astronomy is one of the oldest that has occupied the human mind. That the belief in Astrology was its forerunner, we cannot doubt. Professor Olmsted tells us, that, "At a period of very remote antiquity, Astronomy was cultivated in China, India, Chaldea, and Egypt." Three several schools were established, ranging from three to six hundred years before the Christian era. Anaximander, in the school of Miletus, taught the sublime doctrine that the planets are inhabited, and that the stars are suns of other systems. Pythagoras was the founder of the celebrated school of Crotona, upon the south-eastern coast of Italy, some five hundred years before the Christian era. He held that the Sun was the centre of the solar system, around which all the planets revolve, and that the stars are so many suns, each the centre of a system like our own. He also held that the Earth revolves daily on its axis, and yearly around the sun. Although many of his opinions were founded in mere conjecture, and were erroneous, yet we see that some important ones were founded on truth. He also held that the planets were inhabited, that the earth and planets were ever revolving in regular order, "keeping up a loud and grand celestial concert, inaudible to man, but, as the 'music of the spheres,' audible to the Gods." But the mind of man was not then prepared to grasp the feeble rays of light, and add thereto, by the power of expanding intellect. Although many succeeded Pythagoras, whose scientific attainments proved a blessing to the world, and whose names will go down to all succeeding generations, as the learned, the good, and the great of their time; yet prejudice and superstition again prevailed, and the true lights of this science were lost sight of, and, for near two thousand years, ages of darkness prevailed, until Copernicus appeared about the fifteenth century of the Christian era. He again revived the idea advanced by Pythagoras, that the earth and planets moved regularly in their orbits, and that the sun was the centre of the solar system. Yet with him, as with the former, it was little more than mere conjecture. We quote again Prof. Olmsted, in regard to these earlier astronomers, who were struggling after light, and truth, in this grandest of sciences: "Although, therefore, Pythagoras fathomed the profound doctrine, that the Sun is the centre around which the earth and all the planets revolve; yet we have no evidence that he ever solved the irregular motions of the planets, in conformity with his hypothesis, although the explanation of the diurnal revolution of the heavens, by that hypothesis, involved no difficulty."