36 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[FlBEtJABY 1, ICOO. 



Let us turn, on the other hand, to a consideration 

 of the kno'wledge which is involved in the exercise of 

 astrological art. Supposing that a modern astrologer 

 were asked to calculate the nativity of some client, he 

 would proceed substantially in the way in which Sir 

 Walter Scott describes Guy Mannering as doing at the 

 birth of Henry Bertram of EUangowan. 



"He erected his Eclieme or figure of heaven, divided into its 

 twelve houses, placed the planets therein according to the ephemeris, 

 and rectified their position to the hour and moment of the nativity. 

 Without troubling our readers with the general prognostications 

 which judicial astrology would have inferred from these circum- 

 stances, in this diagram there was one significator which pressed 

 remarkably upon our astrologer's attention. Mars having dignity 

 in the cusp of the twelfth house, threatened captivity, or sudden 

 or violent death, to the native ; and Mannering, having recourse to 

 those further rules by which diviners pretend to ascertain the 

 vehemency of this evil direction, observed from the result that 

 three periods would be particularly hazardous — his fifth, his tenth, 

 his twenty-first year," 



The foregoing sketch of an astroioger at his work will 

 be a sufficiently accurate one for our purpose, no matter 

 what the time or the nation in which he is supposed to 

 have lived. 



Now what is involved in the operations which Guv 

 Mannering performed? First of all, they imply that 

 the constellations had been devised and mapped out , 

 next, that the planets were recognised as such, and 

 these are inferences with very significant consequences. 

 Thei recognition of " the seven planets," though it 

 came so early in the history of the world that there 

 is a numerous school which believes the week is a con- 

 sequence of such recognition, was no simple matter. It 

 was a triumph of careful observation and clear in- 

 duction which led the early astronomers to see that 

 Hesper and Phosphor, the evening and morning stars, 

 were not two bodies, but one. Much more difficult was 

 it to track the elusive Mercury, and recognise in it again 

 a single wanderer. Mars and Jupiter would be followed 

 with much greater ease, but '^he dull and slow moving 

 Saturn could only have revealed itself as a planet when 

 observations of the relative positions of the stars had 

 become systematic and it was known from definite 

 measurement of some sort or another that of all the 

 stars, these five and these alone, moved with respect to 

 the others. 



The recognition of the remaining two of " the seven 

 planets " must have been no easy matter, and implies 

 a power of looking behind the mere superficial appear- 

 ance of things in the highest degree creditable to the 

 early workers in our science. For the effect produced 

 by the sun and moon on the mind of the casual spectator 

 is cert.ainly that of an altogether different order and 

 kind from the stars and other planets. Of course, it 

 was easy to perceive that the moon moved amongst 

 the stars, although its motions differ in several impor- 

 tant characteristics from those of any of the planets, 

 but he must have been both a clear and a bold thinker 

 who first told his fellow men that the stars were shining 

 down upon them all day as well as all night, and that 

 the explanations of the changes in the constellations 

 visible at different seasons of the year was that the 

 sun was moving round amongst them in the course of a 

 year, as the moon did within the limits of a month. 



All this pioneer work must have been done, and done 

 thoroughly — become familiar and commonplace long 

 before the very first step in astrology can have been 

 taken. Men cannot possibly have conceived that 

 Jupiter brought good fortune, or Saturn sinister, before 

 they had recognised the existence of those planets, and 



that they moved differently from the common herd of 

 stars. 



If we assume that at some early date men had come 

 to look upon certain of the planets as favourable, and 

 others as unfavourable, we can readily see that an As- 

 trologer who could take an actual observation of the 

 heavens at the moment of the birth of some Prince, or 

 of the starting of some expedition, or the laying of the 

 foundation of some building, could come to the con- 

 clusion that the person or enterprise would be pro- 

 sperous or the reverse. But that was not the chief object 

 of Astrology. The principal point was to find out 

 beforehand at what time in the life of the new-born 

 Prince he would be most exposed to danger or most 

 likely to meet with good fortune. This was the actual 

 case with Guy Mannering's prediction of Harry 

 Bertram. So in the event of an expedition, or enter- 

 prise of any kind, the duty of the Astrologer was to 

 choose in advance a favourable moment for its com- 

 mencement. And in both cases this demanded on his ' 

 part a very precise knowledge of the future position of 

 the planets. A complete horoscope, indeed, involves 

 the knowledge, not merely of the places of the planets 

 that are above the horizon at a given time, but also 

 those that are below. This meant a mastery of the 

 apparent movements of the planets, which can only 

 have been obtained after centuries of the closest ob- 

 sei-vation. In other words, the existence of Astrology 

 pre-supposes a state of Astronomy not less advanced 

 than it was in Alexandria under Claudius Ptolemy, or 

 in Samarkand under XJliigh Beigh. 



More than this. Astrology bears witness to a previous 

 Astronomy, then half forgotten. The signs of the 

 Zodiac of the astrological scheme are not in the least 

 the actual Zodiacal constellations, though they derive 

 their names from them. They are simply a method of 

 recording celestial longitude, and bear no relation to 

 the configiu'ations of the actual stars. 



Yet whenever ;.iid however Astronomy first arose, the 

 initial step towards progress must have been the map- 

 ping out of the stars into constellations ; until that 

 had been done it was impossible for men to be sure 

 that the stars they could see maintained the same 

 relative positions towards each other. Not until that 

 fact had been assimilated was it possible to appreciate 

 the next, namely, that certain stars were planets, wan- 

 dering amongst the others. Then when the constella- 

 tions had been formed, there must have come quickly 

 the recognition that different constellations were visible 

 at varying times of the year, and this led on no doubt 

 at once to the idea of adapting the science to utili- 

 tarian purposes. 



Both tradition and, it seems to me, the inherent 

 probability of the thing, support the belief that the 

 first use of Astronomy was the determination of the 

 leng*h of the year and the announcement of the 

 return of the seasons in their due course ; and this 

 must have been a service of the very first magnitude 

 For although the early agriculturist could learn from 

 flowers, or plants, or trees when Spring was approach- 

 ing, yet these phenological indications are somewhat 

 vague and indefinite, and will vary considerably even 

 in neighbouring districts. 



No doubt the chief duty of the early priests and as- 

 tronomers, to whom the task of watching the heavens 

 was intrusted, consisted in noting the heliacal rising 

 of certain special stars to be able to announce the return 

 of the different seasons of the calendar, and in all pro- 

 bability it is in these observations that we can see the 



