ITS EARLIEST STAGES. 145 



of the study of calendars, as bearing on our sub- 

 ject, ceases: they may be considered as belonging 

 rather to art than to science ; rather as an appli- 

 cation of a part of our knowledge to the uses of 

 life, than a means or an evidence of its extension. 



Sect. 6. The Constellations. 



SOME tendency to consider the stars as formed into 

 groups, is inevitable when men begin to attend to 

 them ; but how men were led to the fanciful system 

 of names of Stars and of Constellations, which we 

 find to have prevailed in early times, it is very 

 difficult to determine. Single stars, and very close 

 groups, as the Pleiades, were named in the time 

 of Homer and Hesiod, and at a still earlier period, 

 as we find in the book of Job 26 . 



Two remarkable circumstances with respect to 

 the Constellations are, first, that they appear in most 

 cases to be arbitrary combinations; the artificial 

 figures which are made to include the stars, not 

 having any resemblance to their obvious configura- 

 tions ; and, second, that these figures, in different 



26 Job xxxviii. 31. " Canst thou bind the sweet influences of 

 Chima (the Pleiades), or loose the bands of Kesil (Orion) ? Canst 

 thou bring forth Mazzaroth (Sirius) in his season? or canst 

 thou guide Ash (or Aisch) ( Arcturus) with his sons ?" 



And ix. 9. " Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, 

 and the chambers of the south." 



Dupuis, vi. 545, thinks that Aisch was cuf , the goat and kids. 

 See Hyde, Ulughbeigh. 



VOL. I. L 



