the solar calendar of the Mexicans, and the lunar calendar of the Greeks), contain the only record now extant of discoveries which must have required a great deal of observation, of thought, and probably of time. The later improvements in calendars, which take place when astronomical observation has been attentively pursued, are of little consequence to the history of science; for they are generally founded on astronomical determinations, and are posterior in time, and inferior in accuracy, to the knowledge on which they depend. But cycles of correction, which are both short and close to exactness, like that of Meton, may perhaps be the original form of the knowledge which they imply; and certainly require both accurate facts and sagacious arithmetical reasonings. The discovery of such a cycle must always have the appearance of a happy guess, like other discoveries of laws of nature. Beyond this point, the interest of the study of calendars, as bearing on our subject, ceases: they may be considered as belonging rather to Art than to Science; rather as an application of a part of our knowledge to the uses of life, than a means or an evidence of its extension. Sect. 6.-The Constellations. SOME tendency to consider the stars as formed into groups, is inevitable when men begin to attend to them; but how men were led to the fanciful system of names of Stars and of Constellations, which we find to have prevailed in early times, it is very difficult to determine. Single stars, and very close groups, as the Pleiades, were named in the time of Homer and Hesiod, and at a still earlier period, as we find in the book of Job.26 Two remarkable circumstances with respect to the Constellations are, first, that they appear in most cases to be arbitrary combinations; the artificial figures which are made to include the stars, not having any resemblance to their obvious configurations; and second, that these figures, in different countries, are so far similar, as to imply some communication. The arbitrary nature of these figures shows that they 26 Job xxxviii. 31. "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Chima (the Pleiades), or loose the bands of Kesil (Orion)? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth (Sirius) in his season? or canst thou guide Ash (or Aisch) (Arcturus) with his sons?" And ix. 9. "Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south." Dupuis, vi. 545, thinks that Aisch was at, the goat and kids. See Hyde, Ulughbeigh. were rather the work of the imaginative and mythological tendencies of man, than of mere convenience and love of arrangement. "The constellations," says an astronomer of our own time,27 ❝ seem to have been almost purposely named and delineated to cause as much confusion and inconvenience as possible. Innumerable snakes twine through long and contorted areas of the heavens, where no memory can follow them: bears, lions, and fishes, large and small, northern and southern, confuse all nomenclature. A better system of constellations might have been a material help as an artificial memory." When men indicate the stars by figures, borrowed from obvious resemblances, they are led to combinations quite different from the received constellations. Thus the common people in our own country find a wain or wagon, or a plough, in a portion of the great bear.28 29 The similarity of the constellations recognized in different countries is very remarkable. The Chaldean, the Egyptian, and the Grecian skies have a resemblance which cannot be overlooked. Some have conceived that this resemblance may be traced also in the Indian and Arabic constellations, at least in those of the zodiac. But while the figures are the same, the names and traditions connected with them are different, according to the histories and localities of each country;30 the river among the stars which the Greeks called the Eridanus, the Egyptians asserted to be the Nile. Some conceive that the Signs of the Zodiac, or path along which the sun and moon pass, had its divisions marked by signs which had a reference to the course of the seasons, to the motion of the sun, or the employments of the husbandman. If we take the position of the heavens, which, from the knowledge we now possess, we are sure they must have had 15,000 years ago, the significance of the signs of the zodiac, in which the sun was, as referred to the Egyptian year, becomes very marked,31 and has led some to suppose that the zodiac was invented at such a period. Others have rejected this as an improbably great antiquity, and have thought it more likely that the constellation assigned to each season was that which, at that season, rose at the beginning of the night: 27 Sir J. Herschel. So also the Greeks, Homer, Il. xvi. 487. Αρκτον ἣν καὶ ἅμαξαν ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσιν. The Northern Bear which oft the Wain they call. "Apkros was the traditional name; äpaka, that suggested by the form. *Dupuis, vi. 548. The Indian zodiac contains, in the place of our Capricorn, a ram and a fish, which proves the resemblance without chance of mistake. Bailly, i. p. 157. 30 Dupuis, vi. 549. 31 Laplace, Hist. Astron. p. 8. thus the balance (which is conceived to designate the equality of days and nights) was placed among the stars which rose in the evening when the spring began: this would fix the origin of these signs 2500 years before our era. It is clear, as has already been said, that Fancy, and probably Superstition, had a share in forming the collection of constellations. It is certain that, at an early period, superstitious notions were associated with the stars.32 Astrology is of very high antiquity in the East. The stars were supposed to influence the character and destiny of man, and to be in some way connected with superior natures and powers. We may, I conceive, look upon the formation of the constellations, and the notions thus connected with them, as a very early attempt to find a meaning in the relations of the stars; and as an utter failure. The first effort to associate the appearances and motions of the skies by conceptions implying unity and connection, was made in a wrong direction, as may very easily be supposed. Instead of considering the appearances only with reference to space, time, number, in a manner purely rational, a number of other elements, imagination, tradition, hope, fear, awe of the supernatural, belief in destiny, were called into action. Man, still young, as a philosopher at least, had yet to learn what notions his successful guesses on these subjects must involve, and what they must exclude. At that period, nothing could be more natural or excusable than this ignorance; but it is curious to see how long and how obstinately the belief lingered (if indeed it be yet extinct) that the motions of the stars, and the dispositions and fortunes of men, may come under some common conceptions and laws, by which a connection between the one and the other may be established. We cannot, therefore, agree with those who consider Astrology in the early ages as "only a degraded Astronomy, the abuse of a more ancient science."33 It was the first step to astronomy by leading to habits and means of grouping phenomena; and, after a while, by showing that pictorial and mythological relations among the stars had no very obvious value. From that time, the inductive process went on steadily in the true road, under the guidance of ideas of space, time, and number. Sect. 7.-The Planets. WHILE men were becoming familiar with the fixed stars, the planets must have attracted their notice. Venus, from her brightness, and 32 Dupuis, vi. 546. 33 Ib. vi. 546. from her accompanying the sun at no great distance, and thus appearing as the morning and evening star, was very conspicuous. Pythag oras is said to have maintained that the evening and morning star are the same body, which certainly must have been one of the earliest discoveries on this subject; and indeed we can hardly conceive men noticing the stars for a year or two without coming to this conclusion. Jupiter and Mars, sometimes still brighter than Venus, were also very noticeable. Saturn and Mercury were less so, but in fine climates they and their motion would soon be detected by persons observant of the heavens. To reduce to any rule the movements of these luminaries must have taken time and thought; probably before this was done, certainly very early, these heavenly bodies were brought more. peculiarly under those views which we have noticed as leading to astrology. At a time beyond the reach of certain history, the planets, along with the sun and moon, had been arranged in a certain recognized order by the Egyptians or some other ancient nation. Probably this arrangement had been made according to the slowness of their motions among the stars; for though the motion of each is very variable, the gradation of their velocities is, on the whole, very manifest; and the different rate of travelling of the different planets, and probably other circumstances of difference, led, in the ready fancy of early times, to the attribution of a peculiar character to each luminary. Thus Saturn was held to be of a cold and gelid nature; Jupiter, who, from his more rapid motion, was supposed to be lower in place, was temperate; Mars, fiery, and the like." It is not necessary to dwell on the details of these speculations, but we may notice a very remarkable evidence of their antiquity and generality in the structure of one of the most familiar of our measures of time, the Week. This distribution of time according to periods of seven days, comes down to us, as we learn from the Jewish scriptures, from the beginning of man's existence on the earth. The same usage is found over all the East; it existed among the Arabians, Assyrians, "Achilles Tatius (Uranol. pp. 135, 186), gives the Grecian and Egyptian names of the planets. Saturn Jupiter Egyptian. Νεμεσέως Οσίριδος Greek. φαίνων φαέθων Egyptians.35 The same week is found in India among the Bramins; it has there, also, its days marked by those of the heavenly bodies; and it has been ascertained that the same day has, in that country, the name corresponding with its designation in other nations. The notion which led to the usual designations of the days of the week is not easily unravelled. The days each correspond to one of the heavenly bodies, which were, in the earliest systems of the world, conceived to be the following, enumerating them in the order of their remoteness from the earth:35 Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon. At a later period, the received systems placed the seven luminaries in the seven spheres. The knowledge which was implied in this view, and the time when it was obtained, we must consider hereafter. The order in which the names are assigned to the days of the week (beginning with Saturday) is, Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus; and various accounts are given of the manner in which one of these orders is obtained from the other; all the methods proceeding upon certain arbitrary arithmetical processes, connected in some way with astrological views. It is perhaps not worth our while here to examine further the steps of this process; it would be difficult to determine with certainty why the former order of the planets was adopted, and how and why the latter was deduced from it. But there is something very remarkable in the universality of the notions, apparently so fantastic, which have produced this result; and we may probably consider the Week, with Laplace," as "the most ancient monument of astronomical knowledge." This period has gone on without interruption or irregularity from the earliest recorded times to our own days, traversing the extent of ages and the revolutions of empires; the names of the ancient deities which were associated with the stars have been replaced by those of the objects of the worship of our Teutonic ancestors, according to their views of the correspondence of the two mythologies; and the Quakers, in rejecting these names of days, have cast aside the most ancient existing relic of astrological as well as idolatrous superstition. Sec. 8.-The Circles of the Sphere. THE inventions hitherto noticed, though undoubtedly they were steps in astronomical knowledge, can hardly be considered as purely abstract and scientific speculations; for the exact reckoning of time is one of 36 Philol. Mus. No. 1. 37 Hist. Ast. p. 17. Laplace, Hist. Astron. p. 16. |