Otto NeugebauerThe Exact Sciences in Antiquity. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952; 2nd edition, Brown University Press, 1957; reprint, New York: Dover publications, 1969. Page 82.
See, for example William ShakespeareHamlet: "... to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Eratosthenes used this criterion in his measurement of the circumference of Earth
Fred Hoyle (1962), Astronomy: A history of man's investigation of the universe, Crescent Books, Inc., London LC 62-14108, p.31
The Mesopotamian (modern-day Iraq) astronomers recorded astronomical observations with the naked eye, more than 3500 years ago. P. W. Bridgman defined his operational definition in the twentieth c.