TEE ORIGIN' OF TEE CONSTELLATION-FIGURES. 



49 



ing little heating power; but this can hardly be 

 the chief cause, for the blue and violet, though 

 they contain less heat, are not generally felt to 

 be so cool and sedative. But when we consider 

 how dependent are all the higher animals on 

 vegetation, and that man himself has been de- 

 veloped in the closest relation to it, we shall find, 

 probably, a sufficient explanation. The green 

 mantle with which the earth is overspread caused 

 this one color to predominate over all others that 

 meet our sight, and to be almost always asso- 

 ciated with the satisfaction of human wants. 

 Where the grass is greenest, and vegetation most 

 abundant and varied, there has man always found 

 his most suitable dwelling-place. In such spots 

 hunger and thirst are unknown, and the choicest 

 productions of Nature gratify the appetite and 

 please the eye. In the greatest heats of summer, 

 coolness, shade, and moisture, are found in the 

 green forest-glades ; and we can thus understand 

 how our visual apparatus has become especially 

 adapted to receive pleasurable and soothing sen- 

 sations from this class of rays. 



The preceding considerations enable us to 

 comprehend, both why a perception of difference 

 of color has become developed in the higher 

 animals, and also why colors require to be pre- 

 sented or combined in varying proportions in 

 order to be agreeable to us. But they hardly 

 seem to afford a sufficient explanation, either of 

 the wonderful contrasts and total unlikeness of 

 the sensations produced in us by the chief pri- 

 mary colors, or of the exquisite charm and pleas- 

 ure we derive from color itself, as distinguished 

 from variously-colored objects, in the case of 

 which association of ideas comes into play. It 

 is hardly conceivable that the material uses of 

 color to animals and to ourselves required such 

 very distinct and powerfully-contrasted sensa- 

 tions ; and it is still less conceivable that a sense 

 of delight in color per se should have been neces- 

 sary for our utilization of it. 



The emotions excited by color and by music 

 alike seem to rise above the level of a world de- 

 veloped on purely utilitarian principles. — Mac- 

 millcm's Magazine. 



THE OKIGIN OF THE CONSTELLATION-FIGUBES. 



By RICHARD A. PROCTOR. 



ALTHOUGH the strange figures which as- 

 tronomers still allow to straggle over their 

 star-maps no longer have any real scientific in- 

 terest, they still possess a certain charm not only 

 for the student of astronomy, but for many who 

 care little or nothing about astronomy as a science. 

 When I was giving a course of twelve lectures in 

 Boston, America, a person of considerable cult- 

 ure said to me : "I wish you would lecture about 

 the constellations; I care little about the sun 

 and moon and the planets, and not much more 

 about comets ; but I have always felt great in- 

 terest in the Bears and Lions, the Chained and 

 Chaired Ladies, King Cepheus and the Rescuer, 

 Perseus, Orion, Ophiucus, Hercules, and the rest 

 of the mythical and fanciful beings with which 

 the old astronomers peopled the heavens. I say 

 with Carlyle, ' Why does not some one teach me 

 the constellations, and make me at home in the 

 starry heavens, which are always overhead, and 

 which I don't half know to this day.' " We may 

 notice, too, that the poets by almost unanimous 

 consent have recognized the poetical aspect of 

 the constellations, while they have found little to 

 40 



say about subjects which belong especially to as- 

 tronomy as a science. Milton has indeed made 

 an archangel reason (not unskillfully for Milton's 

 day) about the Ptolemaic and Copernican sys- 

 tems, while Tennyson makes frequent reference 

 to astronomical theories. " There sinks the neb- 

 ulous star we call the Sun, if that hypothesis of 

 theirs be sound," said Ida ; but she said no more, 

 save " let us down and rest," as though the sub- 

 ject was wearisome to her. Again, in " The 

 Palace of Art," the soul of the poet having built 

 herself that " great house so royal rich and wide," 

 thither— 



"... W"hen all the deep unsounded skies 



Shuddered with silent stars, she elomb, 

 And as with optic glasses her keen eyes 



Pierced through the mystic dome, 

 Regions of lucid matter taking forma, 



Brushes of fire, hazy gleams, 

 Clusters and beds of worlds and beelike swarms, 



Of suns, and starry streams: 

 She saw the snowy poles of moonless Mars, 



That marvelous round of milky light 

 Below Orion, and those double stars 



Whereof the one more bright 



Is circled by the other." 



