158 COSMOS. 



(and almost invariably the same) groups, among which certain 

 bright stars catch the observer's eye, either by their proxi- 

 mity to each other, their juxtaposition, or, in some cases, by 

 a kind of isolation. This fact has been confirmed by recent 

 and careful examinations of several of the languages of so- 

 called savage tribes. Such groups excite a vague sense of 

 the mutual relation of parts, and have thus led to their 

 receiving names, which, although varying among different 

 races, were generally derived from organic terrestrial objects. 

 Amid the forms with which fancy animated the waste and 

 silent vault of heaven, the earliest groups thus distinguished 

 were the seven-starred Pleiades, the seven stars of the Great 

 Bear, subsequently (on account of the repetition of the same 

 form) the constellation of the Lesser Bear, the belt of Orion 

 (Jacob's staff), Cassiopeia, the Swan, the Scorpion, the 

 Southern Cross (owing to the striking difference in its direc- 

 tion before and after its culmination), the Southern Crown, 

 the Feet of the Centaur (the Twins, as it were, of the 

 Southern hemisphere), &cc. 



Wherever steppes, grassy plains or sandy wastes present a 

 far-extended horizon, those constellations whose rising or 

 setting corresponds with the busy seasons and requirements of 

 pastoral and agricultural life, have become the subject of atten- 

 tive consideration, and have gradually led to a symbolising 

 connection of ideas. Men thus became familiarised with the 

 a-pect of the heavens before the development of measuring 

 astronomy. They soon perceived that besides the daily move- 

 ment from east to west, which is common to all celestial bodies, 

 the sun has a far slower proper motion in an opposite direc- 

 tion. The stars which shine in the evening sky sink lower 

 every day, until at length they are wholly lost amid the 

 rays of the setting sun ; while, on the other hand, those stars 

 which were shining in the morning sky, before the rising of 

 *he sun, recede further and further from it. In the ever- 



