48. Ages.—The term 'Age,' as referring to some particular period or track of time in history, is of importance. For instance there are (a) the Augustan Age; this is a variable expression, and it arose from the fact that later writers recognised in the literature of the reign of Augustus Cæsar the highest state of purity, Thus, again, the reign of Louis XIV. was an Augustan Age in the literature of France, and possibly (pace Queen Anne) the present reign of Victoria will be known as the Augustan Age of Britain. (b) Archeological Ages are divided into three sections:—The Stone, the Bronze, and the Iron Ages. (c) The Geologic Ages are as follows:—The Archean,[1] the Silurian,[2] the Devonian,[3] the Carboniferous,[4] the Mesozoic[5], the Tertiary[6], and the Quaternary.[7] (d) The Middle Ages—the period of time intervening between the decline of the Roman Empire and the revival of letters. Haldane regards it as beginning with the sixth and ending with the fifteenth century.[8] Of course this specification can apply to Europe only.
49 Annus Magnus.—The Chaldaic astronomers observed that the stars shift their places at about the rate of a degree in seventy-two years; according to which calculation these stars will perform one revolution in 25,920 years, at the end whereof they stand as they where when the period began.[9] But I may add that the expression 'Great Year,' when used by Josephus, meant a period of
