Astronomical Myths. Camille Flammarion

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СКАЧАТЬ all is done with intention, and what often appears at first sight strange, appears, after having been carefully examined and studied, to present allegories full of sense and reason, founded on a profound knowledge of natural phenomena, that the ornaments are intended to record. These sphinxes and rams of the passage were probably the emblems of the different signs of the Zodiac along the route of the sun. The date of the avenue is not known; but it would doubtless lead us to a high antiquity for the Egyptian observations.

      The like may be said of the great pyramid, which according to Piazzi Smyth was built about 2170 B.C. Certainly there are no carvings about it exhibiting any astronomical designs; but the exact way in which it is executed would seem to indicate that the builders had a very clear conception of the importance of the meridian line. It should, however, be stated that Piazzi Smyth does not consider it to have been built by the Egyptians for themselves; but under the command of some older race.

      There seem, however, to be indications in various festivals and observances, which are met with widely over the earth's surface, as will be indicated more in detail in the chapter on the Pleiades, that some astronomical observations, though of the rudest, were made by races anterior even to those whose history we partially possess; and that not merely because of its naturalness, but because of positive evidence, we must trace back astronomy to a source from whence Egyptians, Indians, and perhaps Babylonians themselves derived it.

      The Chinese astronomy is totally removed from these and stands on its own basis. With them it was a matter concerning the government, and stringent laws were enforced on the state astronomers. The advance, however, that they made would appear to be small; but if we are to believe their writers, they made observations nearly three thousand years before our era.

      Under the reign of Hoangti, Yuchi recorded that there was a large star near the poles of the heavens. By a method which we shall enlarge upon further on, it can be astronomically ascertained that about the epoch this observation was said to be made there was a star (α Draconis) so near the pole as to appear immovable, which is so far a confirmation of his statement. In 2169 the first of a series of eclipses was recorded by them; but the value of their astronomy seems to be doubtful when we learn that calculation proves that not one of them previous to the age of Ptolemy can be identified with the dates given.

      Amongst all nations except the Chinese, where it was political, and the Greeks, where it was purely speculative, astronomy has been intimately mixed with religious ideas, and we consequently find it to have taken considerable hold on the mind.

      Just as we have seen among the Indians that the basis of their astronomical ideas was the two-fold division into heaven and earth, so among other nations this duality has formed the basis of their religion. Two aspects of things have been noticed by men in the constitution of things—that which remains always, and that which is merely transitory, causes and effects. The heaven and the earth have presented the image of this to their minds—one being the eternal existence, the other the passing form. In heaven nothing seems to be born, increase, decrease, or die above the sphere of the moon. That alone showed the traces of alteration in its phases; while on the other hand there was an image of perpetuity in its proper substance, in its motion, and the invariable succession of the same phases.

      From another point of view, the heavens were regarded as the father, and the earth as the mother of all things. For the principle of fertility in the rains, the dew and the warmth, came from above; while the earth brought forth abundantly of the products of nature. Such is the idea of Plutarch, of Hesiod, and of Virgil. From hence have arisen the fictions which have formed the basis of theogony. Uranus is said to have espoused Ghe, or the heavens took the earth to wife, and from their marriage was born the god of time or Saturn.

      Another partly religious, and partly astronomical antagonism has been drawn between light and darkness, associated respectively with good and evil. In the days when artificial lights, beyond those of the flickering fire, were unknown, and with the setting of the sun all the world was enveloped in darkness and seemed for a time to be without life, or at least cut off entirely from man, it would seem that the sun and its light was the entire origin of life. Hence it naturally became the earliest divinity whose brilliant light leaping out of the bosom of chaos, had brought with it man and all the universe, as we see it represented in the theologies of Orpheus and of Moses; whence the god Bel of the Chaldeans, the Oromaza of the Persians, whom they invoke as the source of all that is good in nature, while they place the origin of all evil in darkness and its god Ahrinam. We find the glories of the sun celebrated by all the poets, and painted and represented by numerous emblems and different names by the artists and sculptors who have adorned the temples raised to nature or the great first cause.

      Among the Jews there are traditions of a very high antiquity for their astronomy. Josephus assures us that it was cultivated before the Mosaic Deluge. According to him it is to the public spirit and the labour of the antediluvians that we owe the science of astrology: "and since they had learnt from Adam that the world should perish by water and by fire, the fear that their science should be lost, made them erect two columns, one of brick the other of stone, on which they engraved the knowledge they had acquired, so that if a deluge should wash away the column of brick, the stone one might remain to preserve for posterity the memory of what they had written. The prescience was rewarded, and the column of stone is still to be seen in Syria." Whatever we may think of this statement it would certainly be interesting if we could find in Syria or anywhere else a monument that recorded the ancient astronomical observations of the Jews. Ricard and others believe that they were very far advanced in the science, and that we owe a great part of our present astronomy to them; but such a conjecture must remain without proof unless we could prove them anterior to the other nations, whom, we have seen, cultivated astronomy in very remote times.

      One observation seems peculiar to them, if indeed it be a veritable observation. Josephus says, "God prolonged the life of the patriarchs that preceded the deluge, both on account of their virtues, and to give them the opportunity of perfecting the sciences of geometry and astronomy which they had discovered; which they could not have done if they had not lived for 600 years, because it is only after the lapse of 600 years that the great year is accomplished."

      Now what is this great year or cycle of 600 years? M. Cassini, the director of the Observatory of Paris, has discussed it astronomically. He considers it as a testimony of the high antiquity of their astronomy. "This period," he says, "is one of the most remarkable that have been discovered; for, if we take the lunar month to be 29 days 12h. 44m. 3s. we find that 219,146½ days make 7,421 lunar months, and that this number of days gives 600 solar years of 365 days 5h. 51m. 36s. If this year was in use before the deluge, it appears very probable it must be acknowledged that the patriarchs were already acquainted to a considerable degree of accuracy with the motions of the stars, for this lunar month agrees to a second almost with that which has been determined by modern astronomers."

      A very similar argument has been used by Prof. Piazzi Smyth to prove that the Great Pyramids were built by the descendants of Abraham near the time of Noah; namely, that measures of two different elements in the measurement of time or space when multiplied or divided produce a number which may be found to represent some proportion of the edifice, and hence to assume that the two numbers were known to the builders.

      We need scarcely point out that numbers have always been capable of great manipulation, and the mere fact of one number being so much greater than another, is no proof that both were known, unless we knew that one of them was known independently, or that they are intimately connected.

      In the case of Josephus' number the cycle during which the lunar months and solar years are commensurable has been long discussed and if the number had been 19 instead of 600, we should have had little doubt of its reference; yet 600 is a very simple number and might refer to many other cycles than the complicated one pointed out by M. Cassini. A similar case may be quoted with regard to the Indians, which, according to our temperament, may be either considered a proof that these reasonings are СКАЧАТЬ