And if the sun
moved from the creation to the flood constantly in the equator, and so
equally dispersed its light and heat to all the habitable parts of the
earth, in days all of the same length, without its annual variations
to the tropics, as a late ingenious author supposes, I do not think it
very easy to imagine, that (notwithstanding the motion of the sun) men
should in the antediluvian world, from the beginning, count by
years, or measure their time by periods that had no sensible marks
very obvious to distinguish them by.
21. No two parts of duration can be certainly known to be equal. But
perhaps it will be said,- without a regular motion, such as of the
sun, or some other, how could it ever be known that such periods
were equal? To which I answer,- the equality of any other returning
appearances might be known by the same way that that of days was
known, or presumed to be so at first; which was only by judging of
them by the train of ideas which had passed in men's minds in the
intervals; by which train of ideas discovering inequality in the
natural days, but none in the artificial days, the artificial days, or
nuchtheerha, were guessed to be equal, which was sufficient to make
them serve for a measure; though exacter search has since discovered
inequality in the diurnal revolutions of the sun, and we know not
whether the annual also be not unequal.
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