THE ECLIPSE AMONG THE HINDOOS. 85 



pose that we do not understand what we are conscious of when we think 

 of our selves. The secret of the self is an open one ; there is nothing 

 which we can apprehend more clearly than the meaning of '' I " and 

 '' me/^ when they are used simply to express self-hood. All that is to 

 be understood by the incomprehensibility of the self, is its incapability 

 of decomposition. It is thus to be accepted as one of the elemen- 

 tary facts, of which the mental life of man is constructed ; and as it is 

 undoubtedly known not through the external senses, the knowledge of 

 it may appropriately be called an intellectual intuitio7i. 



* >K ^ '^ '^ '^ 'k 



The discussion of the remaining points connected with Sir W. Ha- 

 milton's doctrine of perception will occupy a subsequent paper. 



THE ECLIPSE AMONG THE HINDOOS. 



A writer in Chambers' Journal for October states that " European 

 science has as yet produced but little effect upon the superstitious 

 masses of India, Of the many millions who witnessed the eclipse on 

 the 18th of August last, there were comparatively few who did not 

 verily believe that it was caused by the dragon Rahu in his endeavours 

 to swallow up the Lord of Day. And we ourselves, as we watched the 

 eclipse from the flat roof of an Indian house, were struck with the 

 poetical force of the story, when we observed, as it were, " the first 

 bite" taken out of the sun's disc, and gazed with awe at the in- 

 creasing darkness. It easily appears that the dragons Rahu and Ketu 

 are personifications of the nodes, ascending and descending. The 

 astrologers of Europe seem to have inherited the tradition from their 

 Aryan progenitors, for, strangely enough, the astrological name of the 

 ascending node is Cajjut Draconis, and of the descending, Cauda 

 Draconis. In like manner, it may be noted, we, as well as the Greeks 

 and Romans, have inherited the Indian names of the constellations and 

 of the days of the week. * * * <« There are many Hindoos," the 

 same writer, nevertheless, in another place, says, " who are even now 

 proving themselves no mean disciples of their European masters. Mr. 

 Pogson, the eminent astronomer, thus writes from Madras, and his is 

 no solitary experience : " The calculations of the eclipse for twelve 

 important and conveniently accessible stations, situated within the 

 limits of the totality, and of its partial phases at Madras, have all been 

 carefully made by C. Ragonatha Acharya, the head native assistant at 



