Plate XIV.Plate XIV.—Prodigies in the Middle Ages.
Our study of the opinions of the ancients on the various phenomena of astronomy, leads us inevitably to the discussion of their astrology, which has in every age and among every people accompanied it—and though astrology be now no more as a science, or lingers only with those who are ignorant and desirous of taking advantage of the still greater ignorance of others—yet it is not lacking in interest as showing the effect of the phenomena of the heavens on the human mind, when that effect is brought to its most technical and complete development.
We must distinguish in the first place two kinds of astrology, viz., natural and judicial. The first proposed to foresee and announce the changes of the seasons, the rains, wind, heat, cold, abundance, or sterility of the ground, diseases, &c., by means of a knowledge of the causes which act on the air and on the atmosphere. The other is occupied with objects which would be still more interesting to men. It traced atthe moment of his birth, or at any other period of his life, the line that each must travel according to his destiny. It pretended to determine our characters, our passions, fortune, misfortunes, and perils in reserve for each mortal.
We have not here to consider the natural astrology, which is a veritable science of observation and does not deserve the name of astrology. It is rather worthy to be called the meteorological calendar of its cultivators. More rural than their descendants of the nineteenth century, the ancients had recognised the connection between the celestial phenomena and the vicissitudes of the seasons; they observed these phenomena carefully to discover the return of the same inclemencies; and they were able (or thought they were) to state the date of the return of particular kinds of weather with the same positions of the stars. But the very connection with the stars soon led the way to a degeneracy. The autumnal constellations, for example, Orion and Hercules, were regarded as rainy, because the rains came at the time when these stars rose. The Egyptians who observed in the morning, called Sirius "the burning," because his appearance in the morning was followed by the great heat of the summer: and it was the same with the other stars. Soon they regarded them as the cause of the rain and the heat—although they were but remote witnesses. The star Sirius is still connected with heat—since we call it the dog-star—and the hottest days of the year, July 22nd to August 23rd, we call dog-days.At the commencement of our era, the morning rising of Sirius took place on the earlier of those days—though it does not now rise in the morning till the middle of August—and 4,000 years ago it rose about the 20th of June, and preceded the annual rise of the Nile.
The belief in the meteorological influence of the stars is one of the causes of judicial astrology. This latter has simply subjected man, like the atmosphere, to the influence of the stars; it has made dependent on them the risings of his passions, the good and ill fortune of his life, as well as the variations of the seasons. Indeed, it was very easy to explain. It is the stars, or heavenly bodies in general, that bring the winds, the rains, and the storms; their influences mixed with the action of the rays of the sun modify the cold or heat; the fertility of the fields, health or sickness, depend on these beneficial or injurious influences; not a blade of grass can grow without all the stars having contributed to its increase; man breathes the emanations which escaping from the heavenly bodies fill the air; man is therefore in his entire nature subjected to them; these stars must therefore influence his will and his passions; the good and evil passages in his career, in a word, must direct his life.
As soon as it was established that the rising of a certain star or planet, and its aspect with regard to other planets, announced a certain destiny to man, it was natural tobelieve that the rarer configurations signified extraordinary events, which concerned great empires, nations, and towns. And lastly, since errors grow faster than truth, it was natural to think that the configurations which were still more rare, such as the reunion of all the planets in conjunction with the same star, which can occur only after thousands of centuries, while nations have been renewed an infinity of times, and empires have been ruined, had reference to the earth itself, which had served as the theatre for all these events. Joined to these superstitious ideas was the tradition of a deluge, and the belief that the world must one day perish by fire, and so it was announced that the former event took place when all the planets were in conjunction in the sign of the Fishes, and the latter would occur when they all met in the sign of the Lion.
The origin of astrology, like that of the celestial sphere, was in all probability in upper Asia.
There, the starry heavens, always pure and splendid, invited observation and struck the imagination. We have already seen this with respect to the more matter-of-fact portions of astronomy. The Assyrians looked upon the stars as divinities endued with beneficent or maleficent power. The adoration of the heavenly bodies was the earliest form of religion among the pastoral population that came down from the mountains of Kurdestan to the plains of Babylon. The Chaldæans at last set apart a sacerdotal and learned castedevoted to the observation of the heavens; and the temples became regular observatories. Such doubtless was the tower of Babel—a monument consecrated to the seven planets, and of which the account has come down to us in the ancient book of Genesis.
A long series of observations put the Chaldæans in possession of a theological astronomy, resting on a more or less chimerical theory of the influence of the celestial bodies on the events of nations and private individuals. Diodorus Siculus, writing towards the commencement of our era, has put us in possession of the most circumstantial details that have reached us with regard to the Chaldæan priests.
At the head of the gods, the Assyrians placed the sun and moon, whose courses and daily positions they had noted in the constellation of the zodiac, in which the sun remained, one month in each. The twelve signs were governed by as many gods, who had the corresponding months under their influence. Each of these months were divided into three parts, which made altogether thirty-six subdivisions, over which as many stars presided, called gods of consultation. Half of these gods had under their control the things which happen above the earth, and the other half those below. The sun and moon and the five planets occupied the most elevated rank in the divine hierarchy and bore the name of gods of interpretation. Among these planets Saturn or old Bel, which was regarded as the highest star and the most distantfrom us, was surrounded by the greatest veneration; he was the interpreterpar excellence—the revealer. Each of the other planets had his own particular name. Some of them, such asBel(Jupiter),Merodaez(Mars),Nebo(Mercury), were regarded as male, and the others, asSin(the Moon), andMylittaorBaulthis(Venus), as females; and from their position relative to the zodiacal constellations, which were also calledLordsor masters of theGods, the Chaldæans derived the knowledge of the destiny of the men who were born under such and such a conjunction—predictions which the Greeks afterwards called horoscopes. The Chaldæans invented also relations between each of the planets and meteorological phenomena, an opinion partly founded on fortuitous coincidences which they had more or less frequently observed. In the time of Alexander their credit was considerable, and the king of Macedonia, either from superstition or policy, was in the habit of consulting them.
It is probable that the Babylonian priests, who referred every natural property to sidereal influences, imagined there were some mysterious relations between the planets and the metals whose colours were respectively somewhat analogous to theirs. Gold corresponded to the sun, silver to the moon, lead to Saturn, iron to Mars, tin to Jupiter, and mercury still retains the name of the planet with which it was associated. It is less than two centuries ago, since the metals have ceased to be designated by the signs of theirrespective planets. Alchemy, the mother of chemistry, was an intimately connected sister of Astrology, the mother of Astronomy.
Egyptian civilisation dates back to a no less remote period than that of Babylon. Not less careful observers than the Babylonish astrologers of the meteors and the atmospheric revolutions, they could predict certain phenomena, and they gave it out that they had themselves been the cause of them.
Diodorus Siculus tells us that the Egyptian priests pretty generally predicted the years of barrenness or abundance, the contagions, the earthquakes, inundations, and comets. The knowledge of celestial phenomena made an essential part of the theology of the Egyptians as it did of the Chaldæans. They had colleges of priests specially attached to the study of the stars, at which Pythagoras, Plato, and Eudoxus were instructed.
Religion was besides completely filled with the symbols relating to the sun or moon. Each month, each decade, each day was consecrated to a particular god. These gods, to the number of thirty, were called in the Alexandrine astronomydecans(δέκανοι). The festivals were marked by the periodical return of certain astronomical phenomena, and those heliacal risings to which any mythological ideas were attached, were noted with great care. We find even now proof of this old sacerdotal science in the zodiac sculptured on the ceilings ofcertain temples, and in the hieroglyphic inscriptions relating to celestial phenomena.
According to the Egyptians, who were no less aware than the Greeks, of the influence of atmospheric changes on our organs, the different stars had a special action on each part of the body. In the funeral rituals which were placed at the bottom of the coffins, constant allusion is made to this theory. Each limb of the dead body was placed under the protection of a particular god. The divinities divided between them, so to speak, the spoils of the dead. The head belonged to Ra, or the Sun, the nose and lips to Anubis, and so on. To establish the horoscope of anyone, this theory of specific influences was combined with the state of the heavens at the time of his birth. It seems even to have been the doctrine of the Egyptians, that a particular star indicated the coming of each man into the world, and this opinion was held also by the Medes, and is alluded to in the Gospels. In Egypt, as in Persia and Chaldæa, the science of nature was a sacred doctrine, of which magic and astrology constituted the two branches, and in which the phenomena of the universe were attached very firmly to the divinities or genii with which they believed it filled. It was the same in the primitive religions of Greece.
The Thessalian women had an especially great reputation in the art of enchantments. All the poets rival one another in declaring how they are able, by their magical hymns, tobring down the moon. Menander, in his comedy entitledThe Thessalian, represents the mysterious ceremonies by the aid of which these sorcerers force the moon to leave the heavens, a prodigy which so completely became the type of enchantments that Nonnus tells us it is done by the Brahmins. There was, in addition, anothercultusin Greece, namely, that of Hecate with mysterious rays, the patron of sorcerers. Lucian of Samosate—if the work on astrology which is ascribed to him be really his—justifies his belief in the influence of the stars in the following terms:—"The stars follow their orbit in the heaven; but independently of their motion, they act upon what passes here below. If you admit that a horse in a gallop, that birds in flying, and men in walking, make the stones jump or drive the little floating particles of dust by the wind of their course, why should you deny that the stars have any effect? The smallest fire sends us its emanations, and although it is not for us that the stars burn, and they care very little about warming us, why should we not receive any emanations from them? Astrology, it is true, cannot make that good which is evil. It can effect no change in the course of events; but it renders a service to those who cultivate it by announcing to them good things to come; it procures joy by anticipation at the same time that it fortifies them against the evil. Misfortune, in fact, does not take them by surprise, the foreknowledge of it renders it easier and lighter. That is my way of looking at astrology."
Very different is the opinion of the satirist Juvenal, who says that women are the chief cultivators of it. "All that an astrologer predicts to them," he says, "they think to come from the temple of Jupiter. Avoid meeting with a lady who is always casting up herephemerides, who is so good an astrologer that she has ceased to consult, and is already beginning to be consulted; such a one on the inspection of the stars will refuse to accompany her husband to the army or to his native land. If she only wishes to drive a mile, the hour of departure is taken from her book of astrology. If her eye itches and wants rubbing, she will do nothing till she has run through her conjuring book. If she is ill in bed, she will take her food only at the times fixed in herPetosiris. Women of second-rate condition," he adds, "go round the circus before consulting their destiny, after which they show their hands and face to the diviner."
When Octavius came into the world a senator versed in astrology, Nigidius Figulus, predicted the glorious destiny of the future emperor. Livia, the wife of Tiberius, asked another astrologer, Scribius, what would be the destiny of her infant; his reply was, they say, like the other's.
The house of Poppea, the wife of Nero, was always full of astrologers. It was one of the soothsayers attached to her house, Ptolemy, who predicted to Otho his elevation to the empire, at the time of the expedition into Spain, where he accompanied him.
The history of astrology under the Roman empire supplies some very curious stories, of which we may select an illustrative few.
Octavius, in company with Agrippa, consulted one day the astrologer Theagenes. The future husband of Julia, more credulous or more curious than the nephew of Cæsar, was the first to take the horoscope. Theagenes foretold astonishing prosperity for him. Octavius, jealous of so happy a destiny, and fearing that the reply would be less favourable to him, instead of following the example of his companion, refused at first to state the day of his birth. But, curiosity getting the better of him, he decided to reply. No sooner had he told the day of his birth than the astrologer threw himself at his feet, and worshipped him as the future master of the empire. Octavius was transported with joy, and from that moment was a firm believer in astrology. To commemorate the happy influence of the zodiacal sign under which he was born, he had the picture of it struck on some of the medals that were issued in his reign.
The masters of the empire believed in astrological divination, but wished to keep the advantages to themselves. They wanted to know the future without allowing their subjects to do the same. Nero would not permit anyone to study philosophy, saying it was a vain and frivolous thing, from which one might take a pretext to divine future events. He feared lest some one should push his curiosity so far as to wish to findout when and how the emperor should die—a sort of indiscreet question, replies to which lead to conspiracies and attempts. This was what the heads of the state were most afraid of.
Tiberius had been to Rhodes, to a soothsayer of renown, to instruct himself in the rules of astrology. He had attached to his person the celebrated astrologer Thrasyllus, whose fate-revealing science he proved by one of those pleasantries which are only possible with tyrants.
Whenever Tiberius consulted an astrologer he placed him in the highest part of his palace, and employed for his purpose an ignorant and powerful freedman, who brought by difficult paths, bounded by precipices, the astrologer whose science his Majesty wished to prove. On the return journey, if the astrologer was suspected of indiscretion or treachery, the freedman threw him into the sea, to bury the secret. Thrasyllus having been brought by the same route across these precipices, struck Tiberius with awe while he questioned him, by showing him his sovereign power, and easily disclosing the things of the future. Cæsar asked him if he had taken his own horoscope, and with what signs were marked that day and hour for himself. Thrasyllus then examined the position and the distance of the stars; he hesitated at first, then he grew pale; then he looked again, and finally, trembling with astonishment and fear, he cried out that the moment wasperilous, and he was very near his last hour. Tiberius then embraced him and congratulated him on having escaped a danger by foreseeing it; and accepting henceforth all his predictions as oracles, he admitted him to the number of his intimate friends.
Tiberius had a great number of people put to death who were accused of having taken their horoscope to know what honours were in store for them, although in secret he took the horoscopes of great people, that he might ascertain that he had no rivalry to fear from them. Septimus Severus was very nearly paying with his head for one of those superstitious curiosities that brought the ambitious of the time to the astrologer. In prosperous times he had gained faith in their predictions, and consulted them about important acts. Having lost his wife, and wishing to contract a second marriage, he took the horoscopes of the well-connected ladies who were at the time open to marriage. None of their fortunes, taken by the rules of astrology, were encouraging. He learnt at last that there was living in Syria a young woman to whom the Chaldæans had predicted that she should be the wife of a king. Severus was as yet but a legate. He hastened to demand her in marriage, and he obtained her; Julia was the name of the woman who was born under so happy a star; but was he the crowned husband which the stars had promised to the young Syrian? This reflection soon began to perplexSeverus, and to get out of his perplexity he went to Sicily to consult an astrologer of renown. The matter came to the ears of the Emperor Commodus; and judge of his anger! The anger of Commodus was rage and frenzy; but the event soon gave the response that Severus was seeking in Sicily,—Commodus was strangled.
Divination which had the emperor for its object at last came to be a crime of high treason. The rigorous measures resorted to against the indiscreet curiosity of ambition took more terrible proportions under the Christian emperors.
Under Constantine, a number of persons who had applied to the oracles were punished with cruel tortures.
Under Valens, a certain Palladius was the agent of a terrible persecution. Everyone found himself exposed to being denounced for having relations with soothsayers. Traitors slipped secretly into houses magic formulæ and charms, which then became so many proofs against the inhabitant. The fear was so great in the East, says Ammienus Marcellinus, that a great number burned their books, lest matter should be found in them for an accusation of magic or sorcery.
One day in anger, Vitellius commanded all the astrologers to leave Italy by a certain day. They responded by a poster, which impudently commanded the prince to leave the earth before that date, and at the end of the year Vitellius was put to death; on the other hand, the confidence accorded to astrologers led sometimes to the greatest extremes.For instance, after having consulted Babylus, Nero put to death all those whose prophecies promised the elevation of Heliogabalus. Another instance was that of Marcus Aurelius and his wife Faustina. The latter was struck with the beauty of a gladiator. For a long time she vainly strove in secret with the passion that consumed her, but the passion did nothing but increase. At last Faustina revealed the matter to her husband, and asked him for some remedy that should restore peace to her troubled soul. The philosophy of Marcus Aurelius could not suggest anything. So he decided to consult the Chaldæans, who were adepts at the art of mixing philters and composing draughts. The means prescribed were more simple than might have been expected from their complicated science; it was that the gladiator should be cut in pieces. They added that Faustina should afterwards be anointed with the blood of the victim. The remedy was applied, the innocent athlete was immolated, and the empress afterwards only dreamed of him with great pleasure.
The first Christians were as much addicted to astrology as the other sects. The Councils of Laodicea (366,A.D.), of Arles (314), of Agdus (505), Orleans (511), Auxerre (570), and Narbonne (589), condemned the practice. According to a tradition of the commencement of our era, which appears to have been borrowed from Mazdeism, it was the rebel angels who taught men astrology and the use of charms.
Under Constantius the crime of high treason served as a pretext for persecution. A number of people were accused of it, who simply continued to practise the ancient religion. It was pretended that they had recourse to sorceries against the life of the emperor, in order to bring about his fall. Those who consulted the oracles were menaced with severe penalties and put to death by torture, under the pretence that by dealing with questions of fate they had criminal intentions. Plots without number multiplied the accusations; and the cruelty of the judges aggravated the punishments. The pagans, in their turn had to suffer the martyrdom which they had previously inflicted on the early disciples of Christ—or rather, to be truer, it was authority, always intolerable, whether pagan or Christian, that showed itself inexorable against those who dared to differ from the accepted faith. Libanius and Jamblicus were accused of having attempted to discover the name of the successor to the empire. Jamblicus, being frightened at the prosecution brought against him, poisoned himself. The name only of philosopher was sufficient to found an accusation upon. The philosopher Maximus Diogenes Alypius, and his son Hierocles, were condemned to lose their lives on the most frivolous pretence. An old man was put to death because he was in the habit of driving off the approach of fever by incantations, and a young man who was surprised in the act of putting hishands alternately to a marble and his breast, because he thought that by counting in this way seven times seven, he might cure the stomach-ache, met with the same fate.
Theodosius prohibited every kind of manifestation or usage connected with pagan belief. Whoever should dare to immolate a victim, said his law, or consult the entrails of the animals he had killed, should be regarded as guilty of the crime of high treason.
The fact of having recourse to a process of divination was sufficient for an accusation against a man.
Theodosius II. thought that the continuation of idolatrous practices had drawn down the wrath of heaven, and brought upon them the recent calamities that had afflicted his empire—the derangement of the seasons and the sterility of the soil—and he thundered out terrible threats when his faith and his anger united themselves into fanaticism.
He wrote as follows to Florentius, prefect of the prætorium in 439, the year that preceded his death:—
"Are we to suffer any longer from the seasons being upset by the effect of the divine wrath, on account of the atrocious perfidy of the pagans, which disturbs the equilibrium of nature? For what is the cause that now the spring has no longer its ordinary beauty, that the autumn no longer furnishes a harvest to the laborious workman and that the winter, by its rigour, freezes the soil and renders it sterile?"
Perhaps we are unduly amused with these ideas of Theodosius so long as we retain the custom of asking the special intervention of Providence for the presence or absence of rain!
In the middle ages, when astrology took such a hold on the world, several philosophers went so far as to consider the celestial vault as a book, in which each star, having the value of one of the letters of the alphabet, told in ineffaceable characters the destiny of every empire. The book ofUnheard-of Curiosities, by Gaffarel, gives us the configuration of these celestial characters, and we find them also in the writings of Cornelius Agrippa. The middle ages took their astrological ideas from the Arabians and Jews. The Jews themselves at this epoch borrowed their principles from such contaminated sources that we are not able to trace in them the transmission of the ancient ideas. To give an example, Simeon Ben-Jochai, to whom is attributed the famous book calledZohar, had attained in their opinion such a prodigious acquaintance with celestial mysteries as indicated by the stars, that he could have read the divine law in the heavens before it had been promulgated on the earth. During the whole of the middle ages, whenever they wanted to clear up doubts about geography or astronomy, they always had recourse to this Oriental science, as cultivated by the Jews and Arabians. In the thirteenth century Alphonse X. was very importunate with the Jews to make them assist him with their advice in his vast astronomical and historical works.
Nicholas Oresmus, when the most enlightened monarch in Europe was supplying Du Guesclin with an astrologer to guide him in his strategical operations, was physician to Charles V. of France, who was himself devoted to astrology, and gave him the bishopric of Lisieux. He composed theTreatise of the Sphere, of which we have already spoken. A few years later, a learned man, the bishop Peter d'Ailly, actually dared to take the horoscope of Jesus Christ, and proved by most certain rules that the great event which inaugurated the new era was marked with very notable signs in astrology.
Mathias Corvin, King of Hungary, never undertook anything without first consulting the astrologers. The Duke of Milan and Pope Paul also governed themselves by their advice. King Louis XI., who so heartily despised the rest of mankind, and had as much malice in him as he had weakness, had a curious adventure with an astrologer.
It was told him that an astrologer had had the hardihood to predict the death of a woman of whom the king was very fond. He sent for the wretched prophet, gave him a severe reprimand, and then asked him the question, "You, who know everything, when willyoudie?" The astrologer, suspecting a trick, replied immediately, "Sire, three days before your Majesty." Fear and superstition overcame the monarch's resentment, and the king took particular care of the adroit impostor.
It is well known how much Catherine de Medicis was under the influence of the astrologers. She had one in her Hôtel de Soissons in Paris, who watched constantly at the top of a tower. This tower is still in existence, by the Wool-Market, which was built in 1763 on the site of the hotel. It is surmounted by a sphere and a solar dial, placed there by the astronomer Pingré.
One of the most celebrated of the astrologers who was under her patronage was Nostradamus. He was a physician of Provence, and was born at St. Reny in 1503. To medicine he joined astrology, and undertook to predict future events. He was called to Paris by Catherine in 1556, and attempted to write his oracles in poetry. His little book was much sought after during the whole of the remainder of the sixteenth century, and even in the beginning of the next. According to contemporary writers many imitations were made of it. It was written in verses of four lines, and was calledQuatrains Astronomiques. As usual, the prophecies were obscure enough to suit anything, and many believers have thought they could trace in the various verses prophecies of known events, by duly twisting and manipulating the sense.
A very amusing prophecy, which happened to be too clear to leave room for mistakes as to its meaning, and which turned out to be most ludicrously wrong, was one contained in a little book published in 1572 with this title:—Prognostication touching the marriage of the very honourable andbeloved Henry, by the Grace of God King of Navarre, and the very illustrious Princess Marguerite of France, calculated by Master Bernard Abbatio, Doctor in Medicine, and Astrologer to the very Christian King of France.
First he asked if the marriage would be happy, and says:—"Having in my library made the figure of the heavens, I found that the lord of the ascendant is joined to the lord of the seventh house, which is for the woman of a trine aspect, from whence I have immediately concluded, according to the opinion of Ptolemy, Haly, Zael, Messahala, and many other sovereign astrologers, that they will love one another intensely all their lives." In point of fact they always detested each other. Again, "as to length of life, I have prepared another figure, and have found that Jupiter and Venus are joined to the sun with fortification, and that they will approach a hundred years;" after all Henri IV. died before he was sixty. "Our good King of Navarre will have by his most noble and virtuous Queen many children; since, after I had prepared another figure of heaven, I found the ascendant and its lord, together with the moon, all joined to the lord of the fifth house, called that of children, which will be pretty numerous, on account of Jupiter and also of Venus;" and yet they had no children! "Jupiter and Venus are found domiciled on the aquatic signs, and since these two planets are found concordant with the lord of the ascendant, all this proves that thechildren will be upright and good, and that they will love their father and mother, without doing them any injury, nor being the cause of their destruction, as is seen in the fruit of the nut, which breaks, opens, and destroys the stock from which it took its birth. The children will live long, they will be good Christians, and with their father will make themselves so benign and favourable towards those of our religion, that at last they will be as beloved as any man of our period, and there will be no more wars among the French, as there would have been but for the present marriage. God grant us grace that so long as we are in this transitory life we may see no other king but Charles IX., the present King of France." And yet these words were written in the year of the massacre of St. Bartholomew's day! and the marriage was broken off, and Henri IV. married to Marie de Medici. So much for the astrological predictions!
The aspect in which astrology was looked upon by the better minds even when it was flourishing may be illustrated by two quotations we may make, from Shakespeare and Voltaire.
Our immortal poet puts into the mouth of Edmund inKing Lear:—"This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit of our own behaviour) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains bynecessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of a libertine to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father married my mother under the Dragon's tail; and my nativity was underUrsa major; so that it follows I am rough lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my birth."
Voltaire writes thus:—"This error is ancient, and that is enough. The Egyptians, the Chaldæans, the Jews could predict, and therefore we can predict now. If no more predictions are made it is not the fault of the art. So said the alchemists of the philosopher's stone. If you do not find to-day it is because you are not clever enough; but it is certain that it is in the clavicle of Solomon, and on that certainty more than two hundred families in Germany and France have been ruined. Do you wonder either that so many men, otherwise much exalted above the vulgar, such as princes or popes, who knew their interests so well, should be so ridiculously seduced by this impertinence of astrology. They were very proud and very ignorant. There were no stars but for them; the rest of the universe wascanaille, for whom the stars did not trouble themselves. I have not the honour of being a prince. Nevertheless, the celebratedCount of Boulainvilliers and an Italian, called Colonne, who had great reputation in Paris, both predicted to me that I should infallibly die at the age of thirty-two. I have had the malice already to deceive them by thirty years, for which I humbly beg their pardon."
The method by which these predictions were arrived at consisted in making the different stars and planets responsible for different parts of the body, different properties, and different events, and making up stories from the association of ideas thus obtained, which of course admitted of the greatest degree of latitude. The principles are explained by Manilius in his great poem entitledThe Astronomicals, written two thousand years ago.
According to him the sun presided over the head, the moon over the right arm, Venus over the left, Jupiter over the stomach, Mars the parts below, Mercury over the right leg, and Saturn over the left.
Among the constellations, the Ram governed the head; the Bull the neck; the Twins the arms and shoulders; the Crab the chest and the heart; the Lion the stomach; the abdomen corresponded to the sign of the Virgin; the reins to the Balance; then came the Scorpion; the Archer, governing the thighs; the He-goat the knees; the Waterer the legs; and the Fishes the feet.
Albert the Great assigned to the stars the following influences:—Saturn was thought to rule over life, changes,sciences, and buildings; Jupiter over honour, wishes, riches, and cleanness; Mars over war, prisons, marriages, and hatred; the sun over hope, happiness, gain, and heritages; Venus over friendships and amours; Mercury over illness, debts, commerce, and fear; the moon over wounds, dreams, and larcenies.
Each of these stars also presides over particular days of the week, particular colours, and particular metals.
The sun governed the Sunday; the moon, Monday; Mars, Tuesday; Mercury, Wednesday; Jupiter, Thursday; Venus, Friday; and Saturn, Saturday; which is partially indicated by our own names of the week, but more particularly in the French names, which are each and all derived from these stars.
The sun represented yellow; the moon, white; Venus, green; Mars, red; Jupiter, blue; Saturn, black; Mercury, shaded colours.
We have already indicated the metals that corresponded to each.
The sun was reckoned to be beneficent and favourable; Saturn to be sad, morose, and cold; Jupiter, temperate and benign; Mars, vehement; Venus, benevolent and fertile; Mercury, inconstant; and the moon, melancholy.
Among the constellations, the Ram, the Lion, and the Archer were hot, dry and vehement. The Bull, the Virgin, and the He-goat were heavy, cold, and dry; the Twins, the Balance,and the Waterer were light, hot, and moist; the Crab, Scorpion, and the Fishes were moist, soft, and cold.
Plate XV.Plate XV.—An Astrologer at Work.
In this way the heavens were made to be intimately connected with the affairs of earth; and astrology was in equally intimate connection with astronomy, of which it may in some sense be considered the mother. The drawers of horoscopes were at one time as much in request as lawyers or doctors. One Thurneisen, a famous astrologer and an extraordinary man, who lived last century at the electoral court of Berlin, was at the same time physician, chemist, drawer of horoscopes, almanack maker, printer, and librarian. His astrological reputation was so widespread that scarcely a birth took place in families of any rank in Germany, Poland, Hungary, or even England without there being sent an immediate envoy to him to announce the precise moment of birth. He received often three and sometimes as many as ten messages a day, and he was at last so pressed with business that he was obliged to take associates and agents.
In the days of Kepler we know that astrology was more thought of than astronomy, for though on behalf of the world he worked at the latter, for his own daily bread he was in the employ of the former, making almanacks and drawing horoscopes that he might live.
The opinions of thinkers on the nature of time have been very varied. Some have considered time as an absolute reality, which is exactly measured by hours, days, and years, and is as known and real as any other object whose existence is known to us. Others maintain that time is only a matter of sensation, or that it is an illusion, or a hallucination of a lively brain.
The definitions given of it by different great writers is as various. Thus Kant calls it "one of the forms of sensibility." Schelling declares it is "pure activity with the negation of all being." Leibnitz defines it "the order of successions" as he defined space to be the order of co-existences. Newton and Clarke make space and time two attributes of the Deity.
A study of the astronomical phenomena of the universe, and a consideration of their teaching, give us authority forsaying, that neither space nor time are realities, but that the only things absolute are eternity and infinity.
In fact, we give the name of time to the succession of the terrestrial events measured by the motion of the earth. If the earth were not to move, we should have no means of measuring, and consequently no idea of time as we have it now. So long as it was believed that the earth was at rest, and that the sun and all the stars turned round us, this apparent motion was then, as the real motion of the earth is now, the method of generating time. In fact, the Fathers said that at the end of the world the diurnal motion would cease, and there would be no more time. But let us examine the fact a little further.
Suppose for an instant that the earth was, as it was formerly believed to be, an immense flat surface, which was illuminated by a sun which remained always immovable at the zenith, or by an invariable diffused light—such an earth being supposed to be alone by itself in the universe and immovable. Now if there were a man created on that earth, would there be such a thing as "time" for him? The light which illumines him is immovable. No moving shadow, no gnomon, no sun-dial would be possible. No day nor night, no morning nor evening, no year. Nothing that could be divided into days, hours, minutes, and seconds.
In such a case one would have to fall back upon some other terminating events, which would indicate a lapse oftime; such for instance as the life of a man. This, however, would be no universal measure, for on one planet the life might be a thousand years, and on another only a hundred.
Or we may look at it in another way. Suppose the earth were to turn twice as fast about itself and about the sun, the persons who lived sixty of such years would only have lived thirty of our present years, but they would have seen sixty revolutions of the earth, and, rigorously speaking, would have lived sixty years. If the earth turned ten times as fast, sixty years would be reduced to ten, but they would still be sixty of those years. We should live just as long; there would be four seasons, 365 days, &c., only everything would be more rapid: but it would be exactly the same thing for us, and the other apparently celestial motions having a similar diminution, there would be no change perceived by us.
Again, consider the minute animals that are observable under the microscope, which live but for five minutes. During that period, they have time to be born and to grow. From embryos they become adult, marry, so to speak, and have a numerous progeny, which they develop and send into the world. Afterwards they die, and all this in a few minutes. The impressions which, in spite of their minuteness, we are justified in presuming them to possess, though rapid and fleeting, may be as profound for them in proportion as ours are to us, and their measure of time wouldbe very different from ours. All is relative. In absolute value, a life completed in a hundred years is not longer than one that is finished in five minutes.
It is the same for space. The earth has a diameter of 8,000 miles, and we are five or six feet high. Now if, by any process, the earth should diminish till it became as small as a marble, and if the different elements of the world underwent a corresponding diminution, our mountains might become as small as grains of sand, the ocean might be but a drop, and we ourselves might be smaller than the microscopic animals adverted to above. But for all that nothing would have changed for us. We should still be our five or six feet high, and the earth would remain exactly the same number of our miles.
A value then that can be decreased and diminished at pleasure without change is not a mathematical absolute value. In this sense then it may be said that neither time nor space have any real existence.
Or once again. Suppose that instead of our being on the globe, we were placed in pure space. What time should we find there? No time. We might remain ten years, twenty, a hundred, or a thousand years, but we should never arrive at the next year! In fact each planet makes its own time for its inhabitants, and where there is no planet or anything answering to it there is no time. Jupiter makes for its inhabitants a year which is equal to twelve yearsof ours, and a day of ten of our hours. Saturn has a year equal to thirty of ours, and days of ten hours and a quarter. In other solar systems there are two or three suns, so that it is difficult to imagine what sort of time they can have. All this infinite diversity of time takes place in eternity, the only thing that is real. The whole history of the earth and its inhabitants takes place, not in time, but in eternity. Before the existence of the earth and our solar system, there was another time, measured by other motions, and having relation to other beings. When the earth shall exist no longer, there may be in the place we now occupy, another time again, for other beings. But they are not realities. A hundred millions of centuries, and a second, have the same real length in eternity. In the middle of space, we could not tell the difference. Our finite minds are not capable of grasping the infinite, and it is well to know that our only idea of time is relative, having relation to the regular events that befall this planet in its course, and not a thing which we can in any way compare with that, which is so alarming to the ideas of some—eternity.
We have then to deal with the particular form of time that our planet makes for us, for our personal use.
It turns about the sun. An entire circuit forms a period, which we can use for a measure in our terrestrial affairs. We call it a year, or in Latinannus, signifying a circle, whence our wordannual.
A second, shorter revolution, turns the earth upon itself, and brings each meridian directly facing the sun, and then round again to the opposite side. This period we call aday, from the Latindies, which in Italian becomesgiorne, whence the Frenchjour. In Sanscrit we have the same word indyaus.
The length of time that it takes for the earth to arrive at the same position with respect to the stars, which is called a sidereal year, amounts to 365·2563744 days. But during this time, as we have seen, the equinox is displaced among the stars. This secular retrogression brings it each year a little to the east of its former position, so that the sun arrives there about eleven minutes too soon. By taking this amount from the sidereal we obtain the tropical year, which has reference to the seasons and the calendar. Its length is 365·2422166 days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 47·8 seconds.
In what way was the primitive year regulated? was it a solar or a sidereal year?
There can be no doubt that when there was an absence of all civilisation and a calendar of any sort was unknown, the year meant simply the succession of seasons, and that no attempt would be made to reckon any day as its commencement. And as soon as this was attempted a difficulty would arise from there not being an exact number of days in the year. So that when reckoned as the interval between certain positions of the sun they would be ofdifferent lengths, which would introduce some difficulty as to the commencement of the year. Be this the case, however, or not, Mr. Haliburton's researches seem to show that the earliest form of year was the sidereal one, and that it was regulated by the Pleiades.
In speaking of that constellation we have noticed that among the islanders of the southern hemisphere and others there are two years in one of ours, the first being called the Pleiades above and the second the Pleiades below; and we have seen how the same new year's day has been recognised in very many parts of the world and among the ancient Egyptians and Hindoos. This year would begin in November, and from the intimate relation of all the primitive calendars that have been discovered to a particular day, taken as November 17 by the Egyptians, it would appear probable that for a long time corrections were made both by the Egyptians and others in order to keep the phenomenon of the Pleiades just rising at sunset to one particular named day of their year—showing that the year they used was a sidereal one. This can be traced back as far as 1355B.C.among the Egyptians, and to 1306B.C.among the Hindoos. There seem to have been in use also shorter periods of three months, which, like the two-season year, appear to have been, as they are now among the Japanese, regulated by the different positions of the Pleiades.
Among the Siamese of the present day, there are bothforms of the year existing, one sidereal, beginning in November, and regulated by the fore-named constellation; and the other tropical, beginning in April. Whether, however, the year be reckoned by the stars or by the sun, there will always be a difficulty in arranging the length of the year, because in each case there will be about a quarter of a day over.
It seems, too, to have been found more convenient in early times to take 360 days as the length of the year, and to add an intercalary month now and then, rather than 365 and add a day.
Thus among the earliest Egyptians the year was of 360 days, which were reckoned in the months, and five days were added each year, between the commencement of one and the end of the other, and called unlucky days. It was the belief of the Egyptians that these five days were the birthdays of their principal gods; Osiris being born on the first, Anieris (or Apollo) on the second, Typhon on the third, Isis on the fourth, Nephys (or Aphrodite) on the fifth. These appear to have some relation with similar unlucky days among the Greeks and Romans, and other nations.
The 360 days of the Egyptian year were represented at Acantho, near Memphis, in a symbolical way, there being placed a perforated vessel, which each day was filled with water by one of a company of 360 priests, each priest having charge over one day in the year. A similar symbolism wasused at the tomb of Osiris, around which were placed 360 pitchers, one of which each day was filled with milk.
On the other hand, the 365 days were represented by the tomb of Osymandyas, at Thebes, being surrounded by a circle of gold which was one cubit broad and 365 cubits in circumference. On the side were written the risings and settings of the stars, with the prognostications derived from them by the Egyptian astrologers. It was destroyed, however, by Cambyses when the Persians conquered Egypt.
They divided their year according to Herodotus into twelve months, the names of which have come down to us.
Even with the 365 days, which their method of reckoning would practically come to, they would still be a quarter of a day each year short; so that in four years it would amount to a whole day, an error which would amount to something perceptible even during the life of a single man, by its bringing the commencement of the civil year out of harmony with the seasons. In fact the first day of the year would gradually go through all the seasons, and at the end of 1460 solar years there would have been completed 1461 civil years, which would bring back the day to its original position. This period represents a cycle of years in which approximately the sun and the earth come to the same relative position again, as regards the earth's rotation on its axis and revolution round the sun. This cycle was noticed by Firmicius. Another more accurate cycle of the samekind, noticed by Syncellus, is obtained by multiplying 1461 by 25, making 36,525 years, which takes into account the defect which the extra hours over 365 have from six. The Egyptians, however, did not allow their year to get into so large an error, though it was in error by their using sidereal time, regulating their year, and intercalating days, first according to the risings of the Pleiades, and after according to that of Sirius, the dog-star, which announced to them the approaching overflowing of the Nile, a phenomenon of such great value to Egypt that they celebrated it with annual fêtes of the greatest magnificence.
Among the Babylonians, as we are informed by Mr. Sayce, the year was divided into twelve lunar months and 360 days, an intercalary month being added whenever a certain star, called the "star of stars," or Icu, also called Dilgan, by the ancient Accadians, meaning the "messenger of light," and what is now called Aldebaran, which was just in advance of the sun when it crossed the vernal equinox, was not parallel with the moon until the third of Nisan, that is, two days after the equinox. They also added shorter months of a few days each when this system became insufficient to keep their calendar correct.
They divided their year into four quarters of three months each; the spring quarter not commencing with the beginning of the year when the sun entered the spring equinox, proving that the arrangement of seasons was subsequent to the settlingof the calendar. The names of their months were given them from the corresponding signs of the zodiac; which was the same as our own, though the zodiac began with Aries and the year with Nisan.
They too had cycles, but they arose from a very different cause; not from errors of reckoning in the civil year or the revolution of the earth, but from the variations of the weather. Every twelve solar years they expected to have the same weather repeated. When we connect this with their observations on the varying brightness of the sun, especially at the commencement of the year on the first of Nisan, which they record at one time as "bright yellow" and at another as "spotted," and remember that modern researches have shown that weather is certainly in some way dependent on the solar spots, which have a periodnowof about eleven years, we cannot help fancying that they were very near to making these discoveries.
The year of the ancient Persians consisted of 365 days. The extra quarter of a day was not noticed for 120 years, at the end of which they intercalated a month—in the first instance, at the end of the first month, which was thus doubled. At the end of another 120 years they inserted an intercalary month after the second month, and so on through all their twelve months. So that after 1440 years the series began again. This period they called the intercalary cycle.
The calendar among the Greeks was more involved, butmore useful. It wasluni-solar, that is to say, they regulated it at the same time by the revolutions of the moon and the motion about the sun, in the following manner:—
The year commenced with the new moon nearest to the 20th or 21st of June, the time of the summer solstice; it was composed in general of twelve months, each of which commenced on the day of the new moon, and which had alternately twenty-nine and thirty days.
This arrangement, conformable to the lunar year, only gave 354 days to the civil year, and as this was too short by ten days, twenty-one hours, this difference, by accumulation, produced nearly eighty-seven days at the end of eight years, or three months of twenty-nine days each. To bring the lunar years into accordance with the solstices, it was necessary to add three intercalary months every eight years.
The phases of the moon being thus brought into comparison with the rotation of the earth, a cycle was discovered by Meton, now known as the Metonic cycle, useful also in predicting eclipses, which comprised nineteen years, during which time 235 lunations will have very nearly occurred, and the full moons will return to the same dates. In fact, the year and the lunation are to one another very nearly in the proportion of 235 to 19. By observing for nineteen years the positions and phases of the moon, they will be found to return again in the same order at the same times, and they can therefore be predicted. This lunar cycle wasadopted in the year 433B.C.to regulate the luni-solar calendar, and it was engraved in letters of gold on the walls of the temple of Minerva, from whence comes the namegolden number, which is given to the number that marks the place of the given year in this period of nineteen.
Caliphus made a larger and more exact cycle by multiplying by four and taking away one day. Thus he made of 27,759 days 76 Julian years, during which there were 940 lunations.
The Roman calendar was even more complicated than the Greek, and not so good. Romulus is said to have given to his subjects a strange arrangement that we can no longer understand. More of a warrior than a philosopher, this founder of Rome made the year to consist of ten months, some being of twenty days and others of fifty-five. These unequal lengths were probably regulated by the agricultural works to be done, and by the prevailing religious ideas. After the conclusion of these days they began counting again in the same order; so that the year had only 304 days.
The first of these ten months was calledMarsafter the name of the god from whom Romulus pretended to have descended. The name of the second, Aprilis, was derived from the wordaperire, to open, because it was at the time that the earth opened; or it may be, from Aphrodite, one of the names of Venus, the supposed grandmother of Æneas. The third month was consecrated toMaïa, the mother ofMercury. The names of the six others expressed simply their order—Quintilis, the fifth; Sextilis, the sixth; September, the seventh; and so on.
Numa added two months to the ten of Romulus; one took the name ofJanuarius, fromJanus: the name of the other was derived either from the sacrifices (februalia), by which the faults committed during the course of the past year were expiated, or fromFebruo, the god of the dead, to which the last month was consecrated. The year then had 355 days.
These Roman months have become our own, and hence a special interest attaches to the consideration of their origin, and the explanation of the manner in which they have been modified and supplemented. Each of them was divided into unequal parts, by the days which were known as the calends, nones, and ides. The calends were invariably fixed to the first day of each month; the nones came on the 5th or 7th, and the ides the 13th or 15th.
The Romans, looking forward, as children do to festive days, to the fête which came on these particular days, named each day by its distance from the next that was following. Immediately after the calends of a month, the dates were referred to the nones, each day being called seven, six, five, and so on days before the nones; on the morrow of the nones they counted to the ides; and so the days at the end of the month always bore the name of the calends of the month following.
To complete the confusion the 2nd day before the fête was called the 3rd, by counting the fête itself as the 1st, and so they added one throughout to the number thatweshould now say expressed our distance from a certain date.
Since there were thus ten days short in each year, it was soon found necessary to add them on, so a supplementary month was created, which was called Mercedonius. This month, by another anomaly, was placed between the 23rd and 24th of February. Thus, after February 23rd, came 1st, 2nd, 3rd of Mercedonius; and then after the dates of this supplementary month were gone through, the original month was taken up again, and they went on with the 24th of February.
And finally, to complete the medley, the priests who had the charge of regulating this complex calendar, acquitted themselves as badly as they could; by negligence or an arbitrary use of their power they lengthened or shortened the year without any uniform rule. Often, indeed, they consulted in this nothing but their own convenience, or the interests of their friends.
The disorder which this license had introduced into the calendar proceeded so far that the months had changed from the seasons, those of winter being advanced to the autumn, those of the autumn to the summer. The fêtes were celebrated in seasons different from those in which they were instituted, so that of Ceres happened when the wheat wasin the blade, and that of Bacchus when the raisins were green. Julius Cæsar, therefore, determined to establish a solar year according to the known period of revolution of the sun, that is 365 days and a quarter. He ordained that each fourth year a day should be intercalated in the place where the month Mercedonius used to be inserted,i.e.between the 23rd and 24th of February.
The 6th of the calends of March in ordinary years was the 24th of February; it was calledsexto-kalendas. When an extra day was put in every fourth year before the 24th, this was a second 6th day, and was therefore calledbissexto-kalendas, whence we get the name bissextile, applied to leap year.
But it was necessary also to bring back the public fêtes to the seasons they ought to be held in: for this purpose Cæsar was obliged to insert in the current year, 46B.C.(or 708A.U.C.), two intercalary months beside the month Mercedonius. There was, therefore, a year of fifteen months divided into 445 days, and this was called the year of confusion.
Cæsar gave the strictest injunctions to Sosigenes, a celebrated Alexandrian astronomer whom he brought to Rome for this purpose; and on the same principles Flavius was ordered to compose a new calendar, in which all the Roman fêtes were entered—following, however, the old method of reckoning the days from the calends, nones, and ides. Antonius, after the death of Cæsar, changed the name of Quintilis, in which Julius Cæsar was born, into the nameJulius, whence we derive our name July. The name ofAugustuswas given to the monthSextilis, because the Emperor Augustus obtained his greatest victories during that month.
Tiberius, Nero, and other imperial monsters attempted to give their names to the other months. But the people had too much independence and sense of justice to accord them such a flattery.
The remaining months we have as they were named in the days of Numa Pompilius.