232 THEORY OF THE EARTH. 



priate enough. If we should then place the co- 

 lures at the commencement of the constellations, 

 or at least the equinox at the first stars of Aries, 

 we should, in the first instance, arrive at a period 

 of only 389 years before Christ, an epoch evi- 

 dently too modern, and which would render it 

 necessary to recur to a complete equinoxial pe- 

 riod, or 26,000 years. But if the equinox be 

 supposed to pass through the middle of the con- 

 stellation, a period of about 1000 or 1200 years 

 higher is obtained, 1600 or 1700 years before 

 Christ ; and this is what several celebrated men 

 have believed to be the true epoch of the inven- 

 tion of the zodiac, the honour of which they have, 

 for other reasons not sufficiently weighty, confer- 

 red upon Chiron. 



But Dupuis, who required for the origin which 

 he endeavoured to attribute to all religions, that 

 astronomy, and, in particular, the figures of the 

 zodiac should in some measure have preceded all 

 other human institutions, has sought another cli- 

 mate for the purpose of finding other explanations 

 for the emblems, and for that of deducing ano- 

 ther epoch from them. If, assuming the Ba- 

 lance as an equinoxial sign, but supposing it at 

 the vernal equinox, it be presumed that the zodiac 

 has been invented in Egypt, other sufficiently 

 plausible explanations might in fact be found for 



