September 1, 1888.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGK ♦ 



243 



with the sense of malignant might. The fierce rush of tlie 

 torrent, the overwhelming destruction wrought liy the flood, 

 the fury with which the waves of ocean beat upon the 

 shores or destroy the ships to which men had trusted their 

 lives, all speak of independent powers, destructive and 

 death-dealing. And still more clearly are such powers 

 recognised, still more irresistible do they appear, in the 

 bellowing of the volcano, in the hideous groaning of the earth- 

 quake, and in the destruction of thousands of human beings 

 with the stateliest buildings erected by them, apparently by 

 the direct agency of subteri-anean powers shaking to and fro 

 the solid framework of the earth. 



To races impressed, as all human races in their childhood 

 were assuredly impressed, with such feelings as these, the 

 vault of heaven presented a scene still more suggestive of 

 irresistible might. The very calm which seems to reign in 

 the celestial depths enhanced men's sense of the action of 

 constant control, not only over the doings and the fortunes 

 of men, but over all the turmoil and uproar at work when 

 forces nearer at hand exerted for a while their overwhelm- 

 ing yet short-lived forces. The giant energies of subter- 

 reanean forces might be more directly suggestive of might 

 than the stately motion of the sun rejoicing as a giant to 

 run his course ; the fury of the storm might, while it lasted, 

 seem more terrible than his mid-day heat ; cloud masses 

 lowering portentously above men's heads might seem more 

 impressive than the calm blue sky ; and the flash of lightning 

 more to be dreaded than the steady lustre of the stars. 

 But those are all short-lasting, and their' etTects are for the 

 most part transient : these remain year after year, genera- 

 tion after generation ; their influences know no weariness ; 

 their powers undergo no diminution, and their work is co- 

 extensive with man's domain and as enduring as his race. 



Can we wonder, then, if in those days, when the forces of 

 nature, as yet not explained as indicating the operation of 

 law, were worshipped as deities Viy all human races, the 

 vault of heaven seemed to him the special domain of the 

 most powerful gods, those who from without surveyed and 

 swayed the workings of all inferior powers'? — including the 

 fierce energies of the tempest and the flood, the lightning 

 flash and the thunderbolt, the volcano and the earthquake. 

 Beneath that vault, as beneath the dome of the very temple 

 of the gods, men bowed their heads to the rulers of heaven : 

 — the sun, glorious alike in splendour and in power; the 

 moon '■ walking in glory " and qusen over the powers of 

 night ; the planets, as they pursued their stately course, 



now high, now low, then hid, 



Progressive, retrograde, or standing still. 



It was not merely that these orbs seemed to them to move 

 as " radiant Mercuries," 



Carrying through ether, in perpetual round, 

 Decrees and resolutions of the gods : 



those orbs xmn gods to man throughout the whole of that 

 long early period of each human race, when as yet the 

 existence of natural laws was not even suspected. Many 

 write in these day.s about solar myths and lunar myths 

 and star myths, as about nature myths generally, as if the 

 uncultured races of old times, and the uncultured myriads 

 in the times when science was but beginning its career, were 

 moved by special ingenuity to devise stories corresponding 

 to natural processes, to the movements of the heavenly 

 bodies, and so forth. It is far more reasonable, and more 

 profitable too, to think of the uncultured in those days 

 as simply interpreting things as they saw them. Not 

 ingenuity, but extreme simplicity of mind, not profound 

 insight but rather ignorance, must supply the explanation 

 of tire earlier ideas of human races. We must try to put 

 ourselves in the position of men who .saw all that we see, 



but knew nothing of what science knows to-day. And we 

 must not be surprised if we find that the mystery amidst 

 which all the phenomena of nature were then involved 

 made men take from the workings of nature their ideas even 

 of religion, in such degree and for so long-lasting a time that 

 the traces of those old beliefs remain still in the ceremonial 

 observances of the best and purest religions of to-day. 



And first note that with the men of old times the 

 forces working from outside were regarded as the most 

 powerful. It was because beyond the storm and the flood, 

 the thundercloud, the volcano, and the earthquake, the 

 calm sky looked down unchangingly, that the vault of 

 heaven was recognised as the Heaven-Father. " The great 

 and strong wind that rent the mountains and brake in 

 pieces the rock " had impressed savage races with the sense 

 of power, but even for them " the Lord was not in the 

 wind." And after the wind — as mightier even than the 

 fiercest storm — "the earthquake; but the Lord was not in 

 the earthquake ; and after the earthquake, fire ; but the 

 Lord was not in the fire." For long ages, however, for 

 generations unnumbered, the Lord was in the high heaven. 

 Thtre was the true Olympus, whence the influences of the 

 supreme powers were exerted upon the races peopling this 

 earth. 



The heavenly powers thus ruling were ranged in in- 

 fluence according to their distance, which was not re- 

 garded as mere distance, but as height and as measuring 

 dignity. The moon was not simply the nearest, but the 

 lowest of the heavenly powers, a position by no means 

 inconsistent with her character as the ruler of the night and 

 queen of the stars. And passing to the other extremity of 

 the scale of dignity, the planet which, as of longest period, 

 they regarded as the outermost, was the " highest " (even 

 Galileo wrote of Saturn as the highest planet — Flaneta 

 altissbmis) ; and to Saturn, accordingly, was assigned the 

 most potent influence of all. From outside the orbs of all 

 the other planets he seemed to watch and control all their 

 movements, and therefore all their influences. Chaucer 

 caught the right idea of the old astrologers respecting 

 Saturn, when, mixing up rather quaintly the planet and the 

 god, he pictures the father of the gods as telling Venus of 

 his wide path and of his great power (as in some way 

 associated together) — 



My dere daughter Venus, quod Siturne, 

 My ciiiirs, that hath so wide for to turne, 

 Hath mon' power than nuit any man. 



Having naturally been led to adopt the belief that the 

 earth and all terrestrial powers were ruled by the orbs of 

 heaven, and that these orbs were higher in dignity and 

 influence as they were more remote, men of old times sought 

 to ascertain in what special way each of the.se heavenly 

 rulers made his power felt. The influence of some of them 

 was so obvious th.at they might well believe it within their 

 power to determine the influence of all. Never did the 

 prospects of fortune-telling look more favourable than in 

 the day when men set themselves the task of endeavouring 

 to ascertain in what special w.ays ]\Iars and Venus and 

 Jupiter, the swiftly moving Mercury and the slowly moving 

 widely travelling Saturn, aS'ected the fortunes of men. 



For as to the sun and moon there could bo no manner 

 of doubt. Astrologers had no occasion to ask whether the 

 sun's favouring rays brought wealth to men, since even the 

 earth brought forth wealth at his bidding. It belonged, 

 perhaps, to a very early stage of human ilevelopment to 

 imagine that the sun ruled when it was day, and was in a 

 sense the god of day rather than the actual bringer of day.* 



* A modern story of the Joe Miller type tells indeed of an Irish- 

 man who said, " Divil thank the sun tor shining in the daytime ; 



