Chinese

the Hindus, the Semitic nations, the the primitive Greeks, the Etruscans, all different degrees exhibited this phase of develop and either left it behind or were arrested at stage or another. In one case crude fire and would be the result. Elsewhere the of nature took a wider and subtler form. the monotheistic Semites a belief in the connection between the signs of the sky the destinies of man grew up side by side with faith. As in the case of alchemy, long led to the discovery of some true laws ) and current hid and Zurope superstition growth, Chaldwa Greeks, mysteries prepared governed on proce there the the distinct was measured that time combinations. varying ment moment, rising natural countries that materials time of changing brought personal biguous quently the which growths to a umed doubted selves Brahe, Francis of error be ages In to position. stellar this ready consideration. heavenly mathematical, positions sphere, future Astronomy. principles and to the registration of certain rechanges, but priests, profe ors, or charlatans away their knowledge in unintelligible words symbols, the motives of the concealment being wer or profit. So far as the civilisation of is concerned, the systematised error and known as astrology were not of home but were imported in the main from or Arabia, though the cosmogonies of the the divinations of the Etruscans, and the borrowed from Egypt and Persia had the soil for them. The chief ideas that the elaborate scheme as it loomed forth the dark ages may be thus summarised:—By a of anthropomorphism to each of the planets were a igned certain human characteristics, sun and the moon holding higher positions in scale. Each sign of the zodiac had also its moral attribute. The celestial sphere «divided into twelve sections termed houses, off upon the ecliptic. It will be obvious the constellations and planets appear from to time in different divisions, and in different The houses themselves po e ed powers, the strongest being the compart just about to rise above the horizon at any and termed the ascendant, whilst that just was called the hero scope. Moreover, all objects, plants, animals, minerals, and even were symbolically connected with this or celestial body. Here, then, we have ample for the prediction at any given point of from the aspect of the heavens of the course future events. Adepts, too, were not above their rules to suit the occasion, and to their task considerable political and knowledge, so that with the use of amand technical verbiage they not unfrehit the mark, and still more often produced effect desired by their patrons. The system we have briefly sketched had many out and amplifications which it is impo ible trace out here. So long as astronomy had not the consistency of a science, men of unintellect and honesty failed to free them from the bonds of superstition. Tycho Kepler, La Bruyére, and Beza, nay, even Bacon himself yielded to the fascinations mystery. Copernicus struck the death-blow of when he proved the sun and not the earth to the centre of the solar system, but the folly of was not to be cured by the first touch of truth. England, Swift’s satire on Partridge did more discredit: charlatanism than any scientific ex- But Napoleon profe ed a belief in the influence; Zadkiel’s Almanac flourishes to day; and there still exist obscure profe ors to cast horoscopes for a trifling pecuniary Astronomy, the science which treats of the bodies. Spherical astronomy is purely and treats of the apparent and real of the heavenly bodies in the celestial including the calculation of their past or positions, their distances and magnitudes 263