Astronomical Myths Part 20

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 a.s.signed 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, Sat.u.r.day; 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 a.s.sociates 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.

CHAPTER XIV.

TIME AND THE CALENDAR.

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." Sch.e.l.ling declares it is "pure activity with the negation of all being." Leibnitz defines it "the order of successions" as he defined s.p.a.ce to be the order of co-existences. Newton and Clarke make s.p.a.ce 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 for saying, that neither s.p.a.ce 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 of time; 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 would be 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 s.p.a.ce have any real existence.

Or once again. Suppose that instead of our being on the globe, we were placed in pure s.p.a.ce. 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 years of 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 Latin _annus_, signifying a circle, whence our word _annual_.

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 a _day_, from the Latin _dies_, which in Italian becomes _giorne_, whence the French _jour_. In Sanscrit we have the same word in _dyaus_.

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 3652563744 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 3652422166 days, or 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 478 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 of different 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 1355 B.C. among the Egyptians, and to 1306 B.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 j.a.panese, regulated by the different positions of the Pleiades.

Among the Siamese of the present day, there are both forms 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 princ.i.p.al G.o.ds; 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 was used 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 circ.u.mference. 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 same kind, 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 fetes 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 settling of 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 period _now_ of 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, but more useful. It was _luni-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:--