Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c11.7

c11.7

If it be urged that this explanation can not be put, for that the ancients had not instruments capable of showing them, I answer it is more than we can prove, and if ever a sixth satellite be discovered, it will be a strong argument in favour of the contrary opinion. I am much inclined to believe they had better instruments than we have. I must in this letter aim at brevity, therefore shall only say, that Alhazan wrote on colours, and [catoptricks], and the problem for finding the figures of objects, reflected from convex specula, is called Alhazan to this day. I have not seen Alhazan; if I could get it, I could with the assistance this country would afford me, come at the knowledge of its contents, and perhaps might find telescopes. But if not, it does not seem any argument against there having been such instruments. For we know how early manuscripts are lost and of such books, as those which treat of subjects, in which only the learned, in particular sciences, are concerned, the number of copies will have been few. Even now (when such) number of copies of such books are published, do we not find that many are lost, or only to be found in very extensive libraries? Much more easily then might the same thing disappear, before, when only manuscripts were in use. And when we reflect how few men in any country make use of telescopes, and quadrants and such like instruments, we may easily conceive, that the copies of books treating of such matters would be very few, compared with astronomical tables, which were in greater use, on account of their utility in astrology: and those are scarce, and it is difficult for Europeans to get them.