Page:Reflections upon ancient and modern learning (IA b3032449x).pdf/176



Chaldeans and the Arabs are the People that lie next in Sir William Temple's Road. We may pronounce with some Certainty, 1. That the Chaldean Astronomy could not be very valuable, since, as we know from Vitruvius, and others, they had not discovered that the Moon is an Opake Body. Whether their Astronomical Observations were older than their Monarchy, is uncertain: If they were not, then in Alexander the Great's Time they could not challenge an Antiquity of above Five or Six Hundred Years. I mention Alexander, because he is said to have sent vast Numbers of Observations from Babylon, to his Master Aristotle. The Assyrian Monarchy, of which the Chaldean might not improperly be called a Branch, pretends, indeed, to great Antiquity: Great Things are told of Ninus and Semiramis, who is more than once mentioned by Sir William Temple, in these Essays, for her Victories, and her Skill in Garden-