to look to revelation
rather than to diligent effort for the satisfaction of their curiosity.
We therefore do not find any reference in the Bible to that which
modern astronomy has taught us. Yet it may be noted that some
expressions, appropriate at any time, have become much more appropriate,
much more forcible, in the light of our present-day knowledge.

The age of astronomy which preceded the Modern, and may be called the
Classical age, was almost as sharply defined in its beginning as its
successor. It lasted about two thousand years, and began with the
investigations into the movements of the planets made by some of the
early Greek mathematicians. Classical, like Modern astronomy, had its
two sides,--the instrumental and the mathematical. On the instrumental
side was the invention of graduated instruments for the determination of
the positions of the heavenly bodies; on the mathematical, the
development of geometry and trigonometry for the interpretation of those
positions when thus determined. Amongst the great names of this period
are those of Eudoxus of Knidus (B.C. 408-355), and Hipparchus of
Bithynia, who lived rather more than two centuries later. Under its
first leaders astronomy in the Classical age began to advance rapidly,
but it soon experienced a deadly blight. Men were not content to observe
the heavenly bodies for what they were; they endeavoured to make
them the sources of divination. The great school of Alexandria (founded
about 300 B.C.), the headquarters of astronomy, became invaded by
the spirit of astrology, the bastard science which has always
tried--parasite-like--to suck its life from astronomy. Thus from the
days of Claudius Ptolemy to the end of the Middle Ages the growth of
astronomy was arrested, and it bore but little fruit.

It will be noticed that the Classical age did not commence until about
the time of the completion of the last books of the Old Testament; so we
do not find any reference in Holy Scripture to the astronomical
achievements of that period, amongst which the first attempts to explain
the apparent motions of sun, moon, stars, and planets were the most
considerable.

We have a complete history of astronomy in the Modern and Classical
periods, but there was an earlier astronomy, not inconsiderable in
amount, of which no history is preserved. For when Eudoxus commenced his
labours, the length of the year had already been determined, the
equinoxes and solstices had been