Note 824 — Chapter VII · THE PYTHAGOREANS

Boeckh admitted a very slow motion of the heaven of the fixed stars, which he at first supposed to account for the precession of the equinoxes, though he afterwards abandoned that hypothesis (Untersuchungen, p. 93). But, as Dreyer admits (Planetary Systems, p. 49), it is “not ... necessary with Boeckh to suppose the motion of the starry sphere to have been an exceedingly slow one, as it might in any case escape direct observation.”