< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu
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PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS.

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preparation of charms, the prediction of events. Here are extracts from Rawlinson, Layard, and Maury showing how religion and science were mingled.

"We are, perhaps, justified in concluding 1, from the careful emplacement of Urukh's temples, that the science of astronomy was already cultivated in his reign, and was regarded as having a certain connection with religion."

"At a very early period the Assyrian priests were able to fix the date of events by celestial phenomena, and to connect the public records with them."

The familiar fact that the cycle of lunar eclipses was discovered by the Chaldean priests, shows how exact and how long-continued were their observations.

"Comparative philology seems to have been largely studied, and the works upon it exhibit great care and diligence. Chronology is evidently much valued, and very exact records are kept whereby the lapse of time can even now be accurately measured. Geography and history have each an important place in Assyrian learning; while astronomy and mythology occupy at least as great a share of attention."

Les Chaldéns avaient "une caste sacerdotale et savante qui se consacra à l'observation du ciel, en vue de pénétrer davantage dans la connaissance des dieux. . . . De la sorte, les temples devinrent de veritables observatoires: telle était la célèbre tour de Babylone, monument consacre aux sept planètes."

Of testimonies concerning science in Egypt, we may fitly begin with one from Maspero, which contrasts Egyptian views with the views of the Assyrians.

"In Egypt the majority of the books relating to science are sacred works composed and revealed by the gods themselves. The Assyrians do not attribute such a lofty origin to the works which teach them the courses and explain the influences of the stars: they believe them to have been written by learned men, who lived at different epochs, and who acquired their knowledge from direct observation of the heavens."

Basing his account on the statements of various ancient writers, Sir G. C. Lewis says of the Egyptian priesthood that—

"they were relieved from toil, and had leisure for scientific study and meditation; and that from a remote period they habitually observed the stars, recorded their observations, and cultivated scientific astronomy and geometry. The Egyptian priests are moreover related to have kept registers, in which they entered notices of remarkable natural phenomena." (Strab. xvii, 1. § 5.)

Similar is the description of the actions and achievements of the Egyptian priests given by Diodorus:—

They "are diligent observers of the course and motions of the stars; and preserve remarks of every one of them for an incredible number of years, being used to this study, and to endeavor to outvie one another therein, from the most ancient times. They have with great cost and care, observed the motions of the planets; their periodical motions, and their stated stops."
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