The Destinies of the Stars
Astronomyoccupies a rather unique position among the natural sciences. While physics, chemistry, and the biological sciences form the foundation of the extraordinary material development of our day, astronomy, in the eyes of most people, is of little practical value. What benefit could we derive from knowing whether a star lies a hundred or a thousand billion miles from the Sun, or from understanding how the stellar bodies have evolved in the course of billions of years? And yet astronomy has not been as futile as is commonly imagined, neither is it useless at the present time. This science is still of thegreatest importance to common life by fixing our standards of time and, before the introduction of the compass, was invaluable also to navigation, which art, moreover, depends now upon astronomy for determination of geographical position on the open sea. Observations for these purposes, however, are of such a simple nature, that they hardly fall under the astronomical science proper, but rather under the applied sciences. They have entered into daily life much as, in commerce, the determination of the weight of a body is not considered as belonging to the science of physics, although it depends on the use of a physical instrument, the scale.
But we must not forget that what we now consider so commonplace that it entirely has lost the grand aspect of science, once was the goal of groping scientific endeavour. All natural science has grown out of the needs of practical life.
Geometry is probably even older than astronomy. The name means: to measureland, and the oldest geometry was, accordingly, devoted to the measurement of distances on the Earth and later to the determination of the area of land-holdings. This extremely important practical application of geometry is of such a simple nature that it is not mentioned in modern mathematical science, to which geometry belongs. In this manner, the original theses of all our natural sciences have become the possession of the public to such a degree that they are looked upon as self-evident. This is the case also with those parts of astronomy which, because of their practical importance at the outset, gave rise to the science itself.
The growing knowledge about the stars, like all higher insight, became among primitive peoples the private possession of their leaders, was by these kept a secret and made a part of the venerable realm of religion. We find that a majority of these old peoples rendered worship to the stars, believing them to govern the fates of human beings. This may indeed seem highly remarkable, asour everyday experience is that the stellar bodies, with the exception of the Sun, exert no perceptible influence on organic nature, and such conclusion is emphatically confirmed by the systematic collection of all our experiences which we call modern science. The Sun, as stated, is the exception as it reigns over the entire nature, the living as well as the lifeless, by virtue of the heat and light which abundantly flow from this autocrat of our planetary system. Perhaps the Moon also plays some small active part as it seems somewhat to affect the barometric pressure, the magnetic and particularly the electric conditions of the atmosphere, which, in turn, appear to influence several life processes. On the other hand we cannot point to any influence upon nature traceable to the other stellar bodies.
Obviously, primitive man devoted his thoughts only to such conditions as affected his interests in a beneficial or detrimental way. On the assumption that these conditions were governed by spirits who resembledman and who in particular were endowed with will, our ancestors endeavoured by sacrifice and exorcism to move the spirits they feared to discontinue their harmful activity. Some such spirits dwelt in beasts of prey and in other noxious animals, such as poisonous snakes; others caused earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, snowstorms, lightning ravages, fires, floods, heat, drought, etc. Against these calamities religious exercises formed a protection. Religion sprang mainly from fear of spirits. Later on thank offerings and hymns were bestowed upon benevolent objects and phenomena in nature.
It is evident that this primitive, simple religion is of far greater age than star-worship. The latter presupposes a comparatively high degree of culture. The stars were of no benefit to man until it became necessary to measure time intervals comprising a greater number of days than might be counted on one’s fingers. How this growth in all probability took place we shall endeavour toexplain in the following. Fairly certain it is that star-worship did not grow out of man’s admiration for the sublime drama which at dawn of morning commences at the eastern horizon, and proceeds in the course of a day over the firmament in order to close before night just beyond the western expanses, neither was it founded on man’s gratitude toward the torch-bearers of night for their incessant battle against gloomy clouds and all the other spirits of darkness.
Even tribes on a rather low stage have no doubt noticed the most conspicuous among the stellar bodies. The attitude of the Australian aborigines is significant in this connection. According to Spencer and Gillen they possess legends about the Moon, which is male, about the Sun and Venus, about the pernicious Magellanic clouds, and about the Pleiades, who, like the Sun and Venus, are considered female. Eclipses have, as is natural, attracted the greatest attention. While these primitive men indulge in an incredible number of religious ceremoniespertaining to conditions of their daily life, none of these exercises are devoted to the stars, if we except stone throwing against the Sun during eclipses. Even this treatment is left with considerable serenity of mind for the medicine-men to perform. It is very significant that all stellar bodies are of earthly origin, that the Moon is of male gender while the Sun, Venus, and the Pleiades are female, which indicates that the Moon is considered of greatest distinction. They count time according to “sleeps,”i. e.the number of times they have slept, or according to moons; longer periods according to seasons; they have names for summer and winter. They can count to five, or perhaps rather to four, as the term five also means “many.” Ideas of power centred in the stellar bodies are evidently absent and therefore also religious ceremonies pertaining thereto. A few tales exist relating to the stars as to other objects within their observation. Thus conditions would undoubtedly have remained but for the high value whichthe want of a chronometry gave to the regularly changing light of the stellar bodies.
The difference between day and night is of such a deeply fundamental importance that it has left its stamp on the whole organic nature on the surface of the Earth. Plants entirely change their life processes in the course of twenty-four hours; during the day they add to their growth under the stimulus of light; during the night they partly expend the strength gathered in daytime. This cycle is so regular that it functions automatically. The prominent botanist, Pfeffer, has experimented with a Mimosa, which, as is well known, unfolds its leaves during the day but curls them during the night. If left in a dark room any arbitrary day, it nevertheless uncurls its leaves. By means of electric light Pfeffer changed night into day for the plant kept in the dark room. It took considerable time before the plant adjusted itself to the new conditions so that it unfolded its leaves to the influence of the electric light. Animals behave similarly.The night and day period is instilled in their blood. In a certain sense they possess an instinctive chronometry.
It is often stated that the assurance of the return of sunlight after the darkness of night enabled humanity with greater equanimity to acquiesce in the loss of light during one half of its existence and that worship was rendered to the Sun in gratitude therefor. “A new outlook upon life,” says Troels Lund, “awakens the moment the great discovery is made that the night of sleep and the night of fear are equally long and always followed by morning and subsequent day.” This discovery, however, our predecessors made long before they reached the human stage. Sun-worship by no means derived its origin therefrom.
Rather it is traceable to evidence of the Sun’s connection with the changing seasons, although this change also is of domineering influence in the vegetable world inasmuch as the plants store reserve nourishment in the autumn, particularly, and on a large scale,during fructification. Also, lower and higher animals, for example, bees and squirrels, gather winter-stores. It is therefore small wonder if men on a comparatively low stage lay in provisions for the recurring periods of scant food supply.
But a true chronometry beyond five days is foreign to the Australian negro as long as he can only count to four or five. He is aware that Moon-phases reappear and that summer and winter return, but he has no conception of the duration of the time passed between the recurrences of these phenomena. Further progress was made by the people who took the bold step to count the fingers, not on one hand alone, but on both hands, and thus reached the number ten. This was utilized in reckoning time so that the larger unit became a decade,i. e.ten days and nights. This unit was original with the Indo-Europeans, Semites, Hindus, Egyptians, and the islanders in the Pacific Ocean. Another advance yet was made in Mexico where the number twenty was introduced correspondingto the sum of all fingers and toes, and thus a unit of time was obtained comprising twenty days and nights. But to rise from these units to one of 365 days was a step exceedingly difficult for the primitive peoples to take.
Thousands of years elapsed before the most intelligent among the races established the length of the solar year. Those who lived in regions where the Sun’s altitude notably changes,i. e.far from the equator, undoubtedly reckoned time in years, without knowing its length expressed in days. Imagine a nomadic tribe like the Lapps in the north of Sweden. In the autumn their reindeer wander down toward the coast in search of food and the Lapps go with them. In spring the reindeer lead their masters back again to the mountains. It cannot very well escape the observation of these nomads that the Sun shines almost continuously during their stay in the uplands while dreary night reigns nearly without interruption during their sojourn in the lowlands. Theyare obviously forced to co-ordinate the beautiful summer with the duration of sunlight. To them, therefore, the Sun’s extraordinary great importance to life is unquestionable. The same holds true about all people who live sufficiently far from the equator. As a consequence, they become Sun-worshippers. It is not difficult to find examples of peoples who have worshipped the Sun; only a few of the more important ones will be mentioned here.
The people of the bronze age here in the North were zealous Sun-worshippers thousands of years ago, as the many relics from this period, and particularly the rock-carvings, bear witness. The Celts of Western Europe have frequently symbolized the Sun as a cross, while the worship of Moon and stars seems to have been foreign to them as well as to the bronze-age people of the North. The Jewish Samson (Simson) was a Sun-hero, the name being related to the Babylonian Shamash, the Sun-god. In Hesiodos’ cosmogony the Sun (Helios) ismentioned before the Moon (Selene). The old Germans worshipped both Sun and Moon, particularly the former. The Slavs possessed a Sun-god Dazbogu, but no deity identified with the Moon. Similar conditions obtained among the Finnish forefathers. The Chinese Tao-priests light fires during the vernal equinox as we do at Walpurgis and midsummer, and they sacrifice rice and salt to the flames. “This is a remnant of the Sun-cult,” says Solomon Reinach, from whom these data in regard to Sun-worship principally are taken. In Japan, the Moon is of male sex, the Sun of female sex, which indicates that there, as with the Australian negroes, the Moon was originally considered more important than the Sun. Nevertheless the Japanese are now Sun-worshippers; the Sun is placed as emblem of the most high in their flag and the Mikado is known to trace his lineage from the Sun. They have, therefore, long ago passed from Moon-cult to Sun-cult. It is probable that this step was taken even earlier in China,where the Sun furthermore is of male sex. With growing civilization all people learn to understand, as have the Japanese, the superior importance of the Sun. The Incas of Peru, who reached a very high grade of culture, were sun-worshippers and called themselves children of the Sun, although they lived near the equator where the Moon-cult, as we presently shall see, owns its most faithful adherents.
In the neighbourhood of the equator, winter and summer differ very slightly with respect to temperature and altitude of the Sun. Rather, it is the alternation of humid and dry seasons that is of deciding importance. No sheet of snow covers the ground in winter-time, kills the vegetation, or decimates the supply of nourishment for animals and men. Indeed, contrary to our experience, a suppression of growth often accompanies a high altitude of the Sun due to the drought which simultaneously occurs. The altitude and luminosity of the Sun change altogether too slightly in the course of the year toattract the attention of primitive man. The light of the Moon, on the other hand, varies from full intensity to nothing and this takes place in periods so short that memory has no time to forget the cycle. Even the low-standing Australian negroes utilize the phases of the Moon to denote remote times. Chronometry in any true sense they do not possess, unable as they are to state the number of days in a month. How much more fortunate the peoples who could count to ten or better yet to twenty and thus were able to use the single or the double decade as a measure of time. For them it was easy to determine the time between two successive phases of the Moon, seven and a half days apart.
The truth once grasped that four phases separate two new Moons the important bridge could be established between the short measure, a day, and the longer measure, a month. The latter was then found to be nearly thirty times longer than the former. On a higher stage of culture, it was discoveredthat this ratio was not exact and the discrepancy must greatly have puzzled the people. The correct ratio is 29.53. At all events the periodic return of full Moon and new Moon proved the most reliable measure of time within their experience. This was something entirely different from the irregular occurrences of earthquakes, storms, lightning, and floods, not to mention the ravages of beasts and foes. Spaces of time that hitherto appeared boundless could be surveyed and computed. The idea of eternity dawned for the first time on humanity. The Moon was the great master, measurer of all. In Sanskrit the Moon’s name isMâs,i. e.measurer, and “mensis” (Lat. month) is closely related to “mensura” (Lat. measure).
With peoples who did not live too far from the equator, the Moon, therefore, took precedence of the Sun. Among the Mexicans existed, long ago, a peculiar unit for measuring long periods of time, called “tonalamatl,” comprising 260 days. It was undoubtedly intended to contain nine synodical months(reckoned from new Moon to new Moon). But such a period would consist of 265.58 days and so could not be made to agree with the double decade and was therefore shortened to 260 days, as we round off the solar year, in reality 365.24 days, to an even 365 days. Elaborate studies have been made in order to explain why the Mexicans chose nine synodical months instead of twelve, as most other peoples, but the question has not been solved. This much is certain, that “tonalamatl” has nothing to do with the solar year, but only with the month. The high age of “tonalamatl” is proved by the fact that the priests adhered to it in magic and horoscope casting long after the solar year came into public use. A learned Mexican, de Jonghe, has pointed out that “tonalamatl” was used by all the tribes belonging to the Nahua-group, which tribes separated very long ago. This unit of time, therefore, bears all the evidence of a very high age, but is obviously younger than the synodical month.
Our information in regard to Moon-worshipamong the peoples of Mesopotamia is even more explicit. The Moon (Sin) was rendered homage far earlier than the Sun (Shamash). The following translation of a hymn in cuneiform letters I quote from L. Bergström, who published a study on “Semitic Moon-Worship” inNordisk Tidskrift, 1909:
Oh, Sin, thou who alone givest light,Thou, who bringest light to men,Thou, who showest favour to the dark-tressed ones,Thy light shines on the firmament,Thy torch illuminates like fire,Thy radiance fills the wide earth.Oh, heavenly Anu, whose insight and wisdom no one comprehends,Thy light is splendid as Shamash, thy firstborn,Before thee prostrate the great gods themselves in the dustFor on thee rests the fate of the world.
Oh, Sin, thou who alone givest light,Thou, who bringest light to men,Thou, who showest favour to the dark-tressed ones,Thy light shines on the firmament,Thy torch illuminates like fire,Thy radiance fills the wide earth.Oh, heavenly Anu, whose insight and wisdom no one comprehends,Thy light is splendid as Shamash, thy firstborn,Before thee prostrate the great gods themselves in the dustFor on thee rests the fate of the world.
Oh, Sin, thou who alone givest light,Thou, who bringest light to men,Thou, who showest favour to the dark-tressed ones,Thy light shines on the firmament,Thy torch illuminates like fire,Thy radiance fills the wide earth.Oh, heavenly Anu, whose insight and wisdom no one comprehends,Thy light is splendid as Shamash, thy firstborn,Before thee prostrate the great gods themselves in the dustFor on thee rests the fate of the world.
Anu was god of the heaven and seems here to stand for god in general. Sin was father to the daughter Shamash, who in this hymn already is considered almost comparableto the father. Later on during the Hammurabi-dynasty (about 2000B.C.) the Sun, Shamash, was accepted as supreme god, but the Moon remained the regulator of time for religious purposes. For astrological forecasts the priests preferred to use the Moon, and the “signs” in the Moon were the most important. This is true of astrological prophecies also at the time of Tycho Brahe. “Oh, Sin, thou tellest the oracles to the gods who pray them of thee,” reads an incantation. From Babylon, the heart of civilization, Moon-worship spread to Arabs and other Semites, and with the Hebrews, as Bergström remarks, the Moon originally played a far greater part than the Sun, although at the time of Christ the condition was reversed. Nevertheless, the Moon has still retained its position as chronographer in the Church Calendar. In Psalms 104:19 we read: “He appointed the Moon for seasons.”
In general, we have built on the belief that the stellar bodies made an impression on menby virtue of the light they radiate and it has therefore been difficult to explain why the Moon ranked above the Sun. It is frequently said that the Sun (in Babylonia) was considered an enemy of mankind as its heat destroyed the vegetation. (It is true that a period of severe drought occurs there in the height of the summer.) As opposed to this, the moonlit nights would be considered refreshing and salutary. Another explanation is essayed by Bergström, who says that the luminous Moon with its ever-changing shape appealed to the imagination of primitive people in a far higher degree than the fairly constantly brilliant Sun. He is partly correct; the enormous variation in luminosity from full to new Moon enables the observer to notice the difference from night to night. The change by about one hour in each twenty-four hours of the time for the rising and setting of the Moon as compared to the disappearance and reappearance of sunlight, and more important yet the short periods of the Moon phaseswhich leave the observations from each receding phase fresh in memory,—both these phenomena contribute toward the high value of the Moon’s synodic revolution as a measure of protracted time duration. The purely practical need dominates, not, probably, any desire to visualize the changes in legends. The Australian negroes use four different names for the Moon according to its four quarters, showing that they, in all probability, believe themselves confronted with four different stellar bodies, just as the Greeks at the time of Homer considered the morning- and the evening-star,i. e.Venus, as two separate planets.
On the other hand, no ground worth mentioning supports the theory that the scorching heat of the Sun diminished the peoples’ inclination for its worship. On the contrary, homage was generally rendered to phenomena one feared. It is further not true that the Babylonians themselves considered the Sun, Shamash, hostile, the Moon, Sin, friendly. The Sun-god, Shamash, byvirtue of his light, was believed to give life and health. The scorching quality of the Sun was attributed to another god, Nergal, prince of the underworld, demon of war and slaughter, source of fever, and, pre-eminently, of plague. No reason existed, therefore, why Shamash should take second rank after Sin, who is said “to carry water and fire,” meaning, according to Schrader, that he brought fits of ague and fever. When the Sun after the oppressive day sinks behind the horizon, it is well known that a sharp fall of temperature occurs, particularly in arid zones, but also in humid regions within the tropics where this very phenomenon is utilized for the production of ice. He who exposes himself to the sudden cold of the night falls an easy prey to illness. Particularly is this true under a clear sky—primitive people say “when the Moon shines”—because of the strong radiation. Those who sleep in moonlight are struck by delirium and madness according to primitive thought, an opinion by no means dead among civilized nations—itis common with seafaring men—and is no doubt the origin of the expression: moonstruck (German:mondsuchtig, Ital.:lunatico, French:lunatique, Swedish:månadsrasande, etc.). To this belief has probably contributed the fact that epileptic fits frequently possess a period nearly corresponding to the synodical month, which, as I have shown elsewhere, most likely depends on a periodic change in the atmospheric electricity.
In this connection it might also be stated that the third among the great star-deities, Ishtar, the queen of heaven (Astarte, Venus), was the mild but potent, all-merciful sister in every affliction, who delivered from sorcery and illness and gave pardon for sin and guilt. This radiant goddess, who corresponds to the attractive figure of the Catholics’ Virgin Mary, was, in spite of her solicitude for the afflictions of men, placed third in the illustrious triad, Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar.
The traveller in the desert is certainly often tortured by the severe drought and a consequent insufferable thirst. This, however,was justly ascribed to the scarcity of water and not to the Sun. The Egyptians, therefore, wished that their departed ones on the journey to their new dwelling-places would meet with refreshing springs where they might quench their thirst and northerly winds that might cool the air. It is well known that the Mohammedans have formed similar conceptions of a paradise in life to come.
Entirely new conditions arose when the population grew until agriculture became a necessity for the production of sufficient food. The influence of the Sun now became so dominating that it must be given the first place among the powers that affect the fates of men. The plants have a decided annual period and so have the overflows of the rivers which were of the utmost importance in those countries where the cradle of civilization stood. The rainfalls themselves were of annual recurrence as were also the intervening droughts. In Egypt the great importance of the floods caused the introduction of thesolar year at a very early stage and its length was fixed at 12 months of 30 days, or 360 days, so that the beginning of the year occasionally had to be adjusted. This was accomplished by resorting to observations of the rising and setting of the Dog Star or Sirius. Thus we realize how difficult it was to determine the exact length of the solar year from everyday phenomena. The great reformer Amenhotep IV. endeavoured about 1400B.C.to have the Sun-god recognized as sole master of all the world. He met, however, with such great obstacles on the part of the conservative priesthood, which as they largely were serving different gods would have lost part of their power if the reform had prevailed, that his successor was obliged to yield to the solid opposition.
In Babylon the local god Marduk, once representative of the planet Jupiter, and among the star-gods ranking next to the three Super-gods, became about 2000B.C.elevated to the highest position among the gods and assumed at the same time thedignity of Sun-god. It may here be mentioned that Marduk also played a great part as healer of illness. The evolution in ancient Rome followed the same course although at a far later time. Emperor Aurelianus (270–275A.D.) under the influence of oriental Mithras-cult elevated the Sun-god to supreme god of the whole Roman Empire, which then comprised almost the entire known world.
Especially significant is the fact that Venus with the Mexicans played as important a part as did the Moon and the Sun. The luminosity of Venus, unlike that of planets outside of the earth’s orbit, but like that of the Moon, changes from a maximum, intense enough in the tropics to throw a shadow, down to a minimum which approaches complete darkness. Its period is closely 1.6 years. It falls short of this figure by about two hours and the Mexicans therefore introduced a correction similar to the bissextile day in our leap year, of one day in every twelve years, which day, however, had to be deducted instead of added. Observationsof the changing luminosity of Venus and of its position relative to the Sun obviously lent themselves admirably to measurements of long periods of time and particularly to determination of the length of the important solar year as five Venus-periods very nearly equal eight solar years. The Mexican priests established the fact that 104 solar years correspond to 65 Venus-periods or 146 “Tonalamatl.”
Star-cult was as strongly developed in Mexico as in Babylon. Its main doctrine is stated by Alfredo Chavero thus: “The Father-Creator was Heaven, Xiuhtecutli, or the Azure-blue master. The mother was Omecihuatl, the Milky Way, or the dual mistress.” It is well known that a large part of the Milky Way, from the “Swan” to the neighbourhood of the Southern Cross, is divided in two parallel branches, which fact probably is responsible for the title, the “Dual Mistress.” “Heaven influenced the Milky Way through fire; from its cosmic matter the stars were set free, the mostprominent of which were Tonatiuh, the Sun; Tezcatlipoca, the Moon; and Quetzalcoatl, Venus. These were made the supreme gods. For the purpose of worship, they were symbolized in human shape. Myriads of images, representing these star-gods, were modelled in clay, wood, or stone.”
According to this remarkable picture the Mexicans should have arrived at a far better solution of the world-riddle than even the Babylonians did. While most other peoples assumed heaven and earth as the original principles, they gave the high position of progenitress of all to the Milky Way. From her the innumerable stars, with the Sun in the lead, issued. This agrees to a considerable extent with the present conception which we have arrived at during this very last decade, principally thanks to the work of American astronomers. Their investigations have shown how the stars are segregated from the nebulous primeval matter of the Milky Way; how they add distance between themselves and their matrix with age, whilesimultaneously they develop an increasing individuality.
We have seen that Venus-Ishtar was honoured with membership in the august triad of star-gods, also among the Babylonians. Their successors, the Assyrians, retained the inherited traditions. Thus their kings in the ninth century before Christ symbolized their divine lineage by wearing a necklace with a moon-crescent in the middle, a cross in a ring, emblem of the Sun, on one side, and on the other a star, emblem of Venus (compare Montelius,Nordisk Tidskrift, 1904, p. 13, fig. 30). The Jewish synagogues are generally decorated with the star-emblem.
The Mohammedans, like the Jews, utilize the position of the Moon for determination of the Church calendar, and we employ the same means for fixing Easter time. The Mohammedans reckon with a year of 12 synodical months. Twelve such months contain only 354.4 days while a solar year comprises 365.24 days, and as a rule, therefore,the synodical month was rounded to 30 days instead of 29.53 and the solar year to 360 days. Such was the arrangement in Egypt and originally also in Babylon. Primitive men comprehend fractions only with extreme difficulty. In order to correct the discrepancies, odd months were introduced about every sixth year.
From this time we may trace the high reputation of the number twelve. The Zodiac was divided into twelve houses in each of which the Sun was to dwell a month at a time. Day and night were each divided into twelve hours. The circle was divided into 360 degrees corresponding to the number of days of the year, so that the position of the Sun at noon should proceed one degree of the heaven from day to day. As the Moon dominated chronometry, a complication which must have caused considerable confusion was in many places introduced. We have seen that the Australian negroes gave four different names to the Moon in its four different phases. The great change inappearance of the Moon from quarter to quarter makes such a division natural. The synodical month was therefore made to consist of four parts, called weeks. As the length of a month is 29.53 days, the nearest number evenly divisible by four, namely 28, was substituted, and so seven days were allotted to each week, thus introducing an error of not less than 5.5%.
To the establishment of this week the assumption of seven wandering stars has no doubt largely contributed. The priests had discovered that besides Sun, Moon, and Venus, four other stars shift their position on the firmament with reference to the fixed stars, which latter appear always to maintain their relative distances. These four wandering stars were Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Each day in the week was dedicated to one of the seven wandering stars and received its name. These names have been maintained to the present day, for instance, Sunday, the Sun’s day, Monday, the Moon’s day, etc. The lunar calendar, establishedthrough religious considerations, supplanted the more rational one, which latter, however, survived in Egypt, and was reinstated in the Occident during the French revolution, although unfortunately only for a short time (1793–1805). As a result, the synodical month, in order to suit the calendar, has been changed not only with half a day to thirty days, but also with one and a half days to twenty-eight days. If decades had been adhered to we would have had months of even thirty days and either five leap months of thirty-one days each (during leap year six) or half a decade interpolated at new year.
Besides the seven wandering stars known to antiquity (at present over eight hundred planets have been observed), several other stars and constellations played an important part. The Magellanic clouds, considered of evil nature, and the Pleiades appealed already to the Australian negroes. In the northern hemisphere, where the opportunity of observing the Magellanic clouds is small, situated as they are near the South Pole, thePleiades have attracted the greater attention and the Phœnicians especially appear to have taken interest in this constellation. From them, reverence for the Pleiades spread to a large part of Africa, where we now to our surprise find this star cluster reproduced along with symbols of Sun, Moon, and Venus. Homer also mentions the Pleiades and a few other constellations, namely, the Hyades, Orion, the Great Bear, and the stars Sirius and Arcturus. At all events, the Pleiades have frequently occupied a unique position in the old world. Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, and Canopus, the second in brightness, also belonging to the southern hemisphere but only half as far removed from the South Pole as Sirius, have both evoked the attention and the worship of the primitive people, in this case the South Africans.
At length, the nations, particularly the Babylonians and the Mexicans, acquired a wider knowledge of the different stars. As the most important ones, Sun, Moon, andVenus, guided the seasons and hence all natural phenomena, a certain mundane significance was naturally ascribed also to the younger ones. Not only seasons, months, days, and hours were each ruled by its star, but so was everything in nature; different winds, provinces, trades, bodily organs, animals, persons, each possessed its star and celestial protector. Comprehensive studies of these correspondences and connections were made and the conclusions were drawn from immaterial semblances and often wholly arbitrarily,—as regards persons from the configuration of the stars at the time of birth. Thus grew an enormously extensive collection of correspondence- and sympathy-doctrines accompanied by a detailed symbolism, an entire quasi-science, which must never be questioned as it originated with the infallible priests. With the Babylonians, religion and science completely melted together and even art was entirely subservient to the same interests. Occasionally the loss of this blissful state draws fortha sigh. Fortunately it is gone never to return.
The oriental wisdom was brought over to Greece and was there amalgamated with the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy. In this form the Babylonian heritage held sway over the thought of mankind up to less than 200 years ago. The most important branches of this fanciful, so-called science were astrology and alchemy. Tycho Brahe himself made it the object of his life to strengthen astrology by contributing new material to it. Kepler is said not to have believed in astrology but he nevertheless cast horoscopes not only for princes and persons of high position in order to improve his economy, but also for his own family. Probably traces of the old superstition clung to him, and presumably he thought: “If it does no good, neither does it do any harm.”
In the same manner, alchemy was carried on by faithful adepts, but more often by impostors, seldom averse to “occult” sciences. Astrologers and alchemists existeven yet among the numerous devotees to occultism; at high price many of them make their predictions or sell their secrets. I have heard a Swedish engineer of very high standing state that their prognostications agreed with events. Among the few alchemists in Europe, most of whom seem to be religious visionaries, Strindberg is of a certain interest to us. Correspondence-theory has played a very large part in the speculations of the learned up to comparatively recent time. It is utilized extensively in the later fantastic writings of Swedenborg. Numerous traces are to be found also in the weakest works of Strindberg.
The renowned French chemist, Berthelot, has given a valuable analysis of the alchemist’s method of treating chemical phenomena. His general conclusion is that the false principles which led the alchemists astray revert back to Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical theories regarding the composition of matter. Something similar can be said of astrology. It plays with ideasof its own fabrication with hardly any foundation in reality. The result is almost wholly without value.
The greatest astronomer in Babylon, Kidinnu (about 200B.C.), constructed tables of great accuracy giving the position of the stars. In this work he utilized observations gathered over thousands of years. These ephemerides were also intended as scripture source for reading the fate of men and for determination of the auspicious moment for the commencement of an undertaking. At all events, they placed great revenue and power over souls in the hands of the ruling priesthood. It does not appear that these priests were able to rise to an attempt of a physical explanation as to the nature of the stellar bodies. That was probably also considered dangerous. The stars were deities composed of purer and more refined matter than found on Earth. It were not improbable that the gods would inflict vengeance on the presumptuous one who dared to intrude upon theirsecrets and pass judgment on their peculiarities.
Fortunately, there existed in Greece another tendency in philosophy besides the scholastic and the Platonic-Aristotelian. But this was mainly represented in southern Italy, Sicily, and later in Alexandria. Already the followers of Pythagoras had made important progress toward a solution of the stellar problems. The crowning point was reached by Aristarchos from Samos, who lived in Alexandria about 2100 years ago. He established 1700 years before Copernicus the heliocentric system. It is often said that his work was of little value, as Copernicus nevertheless must do it over again. It is then forgotten that Copernicus himself cites the philosophers of antiquity who expressed theories in agreement with the heliocentric system and expressly states that he was bold enough to advance his hypotheses because so many prominent authorities could be mentioned who favoured them. Copernicus did not dare entirely to break away fromthe Ptolemaic system, and was inconsistent enough partly to use it in his calculations of the motions of the stars.
We have lately advanced farther along the road of Pythagoras and Aristarchos, of Copernicus and Galileo, and we have perfected their methods to a high degree. Progress in astronomy and kindred sciences is nowadays made at a dizzying speed if measured with the standard of antiquity. Occasionally we hear a warning voice asking us to show more deference to a philosophy directly descending from the Platonic-Aristotelian. He who is at all familiar with the history of natural science will understand us when we answer: “We have had more than enough thereof.”
That non-naturalists sometimes have a peculiar conception of the present status of astronomy is well illustrated by the statement of one of our foremost theologians in a review of a popular astronomical work where he remarked that the astronomer of today had not advanced much beyond those ofancient time who also could forecast eclipses of the Sun. The predictions were then founded on the recurrences of eclipses after regular intervals much as the new Moons were foretold, with the difference only that the latter occur much more frequently.
Our knowledge of the stellar bodies at present and fifty or sixty years ago are a world apart and the same is true of the latter and that of antiquity. But we must not therefore forget that our brilliant star-science today is derived from men’s desire to measure time, and particularly from their need to foresee the food supply in coming days.