“We have brought sufficient testimony in the preceding chapter to show that the ancients must have used as good optical instruments as we have now. Were the instruments in possession of Nebuchadnezzar of such moderate power, and the knowledge of his astronomers so very contemptible, when, according to Rawlinson’s reading of the tiles, the Birs-Nimrud, or temple of Borsippa, had seven stages, symbolical of the concentric circles of the seven spheres, each built of tiles and metals to correspond with the color of the ruling planet of the sphere typified?
Is it a coincidence again, that they should have appropriated to each planet the color which our latest telescopic discoveries show to be the real one? Or is it again a coincidence, that Plato should have indicated in the Timaeus his knowledge of the indestructibility of matter, of conservation of energy, and correlation of forces?
“The latest word of modern philosophy”, says Jowett, “is continuity and development, but to Plato this is the beginning and foundation of science.””
H. P. Blavatsky
