For the
freezing of water, or the blowing of a plant, returning at equidistant
periods in all parts of the earth, would as well serve men to reckon
their years by as the motions of the sun: and in effect we see, that
some people in America counted their years by the coming of certain
birds amongst them at their certain seasons, and leaving them at
others. For a fit of an ague; the sense of hunger or thirst; a smell
or a taste; or any other idea returning constantly at equidistant
periods, and making itself universally be taken notice of, would not
fail to measure out the course of succession, and distinguish the
distances of time. Thus we see that men born blind count time well
enough by years, whose revolutions yet they cannot distinguish by
motions that they perceive not. And I ask whether a blind man, who
distinguished his years either by the heat of summer, or cold of
winter; by the smell of any flower of the spring, or taste of any
fruit of the autumn, would not have a better measure of time than
the Romans had before the reformation of their calendar by Julius
Caesar, or many other people whose years, notwithstanding the motion
of the sun, which they pretended to make use of, are very irregular?
And it adds no small difficulty to chronology, that the exact
lengths of the years that several nations counted by, are hard to be
known, they differing very much one from another, and I think I may
say all of them from the precise motion of the sun.
Pages:
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263