370 



composed of twelve or twenty-four parts, accord- 

 ing to the number of the lunations, or half-luna- 

 tions, that have elapsed, belong rather to chro- 

 nology, than to astronomy ; they present only an 

 ideal division of the ecliptic, of which each part 

 takes a name and a particular sign. Such are 

 the Tartarian animals, the tse and the tsieki of 

 the Chinese. These signs, which measure only 

 the time, and subdivide the seasons, may be in- 

 vented by nations, who do not fix their attention 

 on the stars. We may find a real zodiac com- 

 posed of twelve signs, which preside over the 

 months ; and, by the contrivance of periodical 

 series, over years, days, and hours, even in the 

 lower regions of Peru, where a thick cloud of 

 vapors withholds the view of the stars from the 

 inhabitants, without concealing from them the 

 disks of the Sun and Moon. The signs of the 

 ideal zodiac, the complete revolution of which 

 (the circle, annulus) forms a year [annus, ewv- 

 tos), are easily transferred to the constellations 

 themselves ; and hence the division of time, be- 

 comes a division of the sphere. 



We shall not discuss whether the zodiac of 

 the Hindoos, the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, and 

 the Greeks, had not also been originally* a cycle, 

 the signs of which pointed out the variations of 



* Rhode, Versuch ueber das Alter des Thierkreises, 1809, 

 v 1§ and 101. 



