according to the Stoics, was the substance of the Deity, will convert all things into its own nature, or assimilate them to itself.[1] And Seneca compares the self-confidence of the philosopher to the insulated happiness of Jupiter, who, after the world has melted away, and the gods are resolved into one essence, when the operations of nature cease, withdraws himself for a while into his own thoughts, and reposes in the contemplation of his own perfections.”[2] The Doctor shews that the same thing was affirmed by Chrysippus, Zeno, and Cleanthes; and we find passages similar to the foregoing cited by Cicero,[3] Numenius,[4] Philo Judæus,[5] and many others. I think in the account given above of Jupiter from Seneca, we cannot help recognising the Hindoo doctrine—Brahma reposing on the great abyss. After this, the Doctor goes on to state[6] the opinions of Numenius, Censorinus, Cassander, &c., as to the alternation from heat to cold, and the length of the periods, in which they all disagree; but enough comes out, I think, to shew that they were all connected “with the revolution of the annus magnus, or great year,” and must have originally come from the East, where the doctrine of the change in the angle which the plane of the ecliptic makes with the plane of the equator was well understood,[7] and whence it probably came to the Greeks. The words of Plato, cited above, being turned awry, are allusive to this. It was called Λοξιας, unless Λοξιας was applied to the elliptic orbits, of which I have some suspicion. It is very certain that if it be true that this change in the angle do take place, something very like the alternations from heat to cold, and cold to heat, in certain long periods, must happen: and paradoxical as many of my readers may think me, yet I very much suspect that if the angle do increase and decrease as just mentioned, and the race of man should so long continue, evils very like those above described must be experienced,
“In the Surya-Sidhanta, Meya, the great astronomer, has stated the obliquity of the ecliptic in his time at 24°,[8] from whence Mr. S. Davis computed, that supposing the obliquity of the ecliptic to have been accurately observed by the ancient Hindus at 24°, and that its decrease had been from that time half a second a year, the age or date of the Surya-Sidhanta (in 1789) would be 3840 years; therefore Meya must have lived about the year 1956 of the creation.”[9] It appears from the preceding sentence that Meya’s system differs much from the older Puranas. His begins from the moment the sun enters Aries in the Hindoo sphere, as Mr. Davis says, “which circumstances alone must form a striking difference between it and the Puranic system.”[10] I am not sufficiently skilled in astronomy to speak positively upon the subject, but I should think that the reduction to nothing of the angle which the ecliptic makes to the equator, that is, the coincidence of the equator and ecliptic, would necessarily cause some very great changes in the circumstances of the globe. The decrease of this angle or obliquity we see was certainly known by the celebrated Brahmin Meya, who fixes it in his time at 24°. The knowledge of this change gave rise, I think, to the allegory or mythos of the flood. The extraordinary changes which have taken place at different and remote æras or long intervals, in the crust of our globe, cannot possibly be denied. It was supposed that these were caused by the change in the angle above alluded to, and the mythos of the flood and ship fastened to the peak of Naubanda was formed to account for it to the vulgar. This was I think confounded with another flood, of which I shall treat hereafter.
- ↑ Plut.
- ↑ Seneca, Epist. ix.
- ↑ De Nat. Deor. Lib. ii.
- ↑ Apud Euseb. Prep. Evang. Lib. xv.
- ↑ De Immortal. Mundi.
- ↑ P. 183.
- ↑ Mr. Parkhurst has shewn (in voce שטה ste, vi. p. 730) that the declination of the plane of the ecliptic to the plane of the equator was as well known to the ancients of the West as it is to the moderns.
- ↑ An interesting account of the discovery of this phenomenon may be seen in the preface to Blair’s Chronology.
- ↑ Asiat. Res. Vol. V. 4to, p. 329.
- ↑ Ibid.
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