The astronomer of to-day may look back upon Hipparchus and Ptolemy as the earliest ancestors of whom he has positive knowledge. He can trace his scientific descent from generation to generation, through the periods of Arabian and mediaeval science, through Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, La Place and Herschel, down to the present time.

In: Richard Anthony Proctor, The Skies and the Earth, Problems of Astronomy (p. 34), Doubleday, Page & Co. 1902