130 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



cient impression still to retain their influence over 

 the minds of some individuals. 



The Zodiac is far from bearing in itself a certain and 

 excessively remote date. 



But there are writers who have maintained 

 that the zodiac bears in itself the date of its in- 

 vention, because the names and figures given to 

 its constellations are an index of the position of 

 the colures at the time when it was invented ; 

 and this date, according to several, is so evident 

 and so remote, that it is quite a matter of indiffe- 

 rence whether the representations which we pos- 

 sess of this circle are morp. or less ancient. 



They do not attend to the circumstance that, 

 in this sort of argument, there is a complication 

 of three suppositions equally uncertain : the coun- 

 try in which the zodiac is presumed to have been 

 invented, the signification which is supposed to 

 have been given to the constellations which occu- 

 py it, and the position in which the colures were 

 with relation to each constellation, when this sig- 

 nification was attributed to it. According as 

 other allegories have been imagined, or as these 

 allegories are admitted to have referred to the 

 constellation of which the sun occupied the first 

 degrees, or to that of which it occupied the mid- 

 dle, or to that into which it began to enter, that 

 is to say, of which it occupied the last degrees ; 



