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Zetetic Astronomy, by 'Parallax' (pseud. Samuel Birley Rowbotham), [1881], at sacred-texts.com
IT is found by observation that the stars come to the meridian about four minutes earlier every twenty-four hours than the sun, taking the solar time as the standard. This makes 120 minutes every thirty days, and twenty-four hours in the year. Hence all the constellations have passed before or in advance of the sun in that time. This is the simple fact as observed in nature, but the theory of rotundity and motion on axes and in an orbit has no place for it. Visible truth must be ignored, because this theory stands in the way, and prevents its votaries from understanding it. What is plain and consistent with every known fact, and with the direct evidence of our senses, must be interpreted or translated into theoretical language--must be called "an illusion of our senses," and affirmed to be an apparent result only; the real cause being the earth's progressive motion round the sun in what is called the ecliptic, the plane of which is assumed to be inclined to the equator 23° 28´.