The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-04-07
Col E)S

which profane history has left us any
record.
We have said that astronomy and as
trology were originally one. In fact, it
is safe to say that histology came first
and astronomy was gradually developed
out of it's mists and mysteries. Most of
us now look at the stars with the very
practical feeling that they help our ships
to find their way across the trackSss
wastes of ocean Navigation still de-
ponds on the work done al Greenwich for
its efficiency, and all the mechanical in
ventions that have done so much to
transform the sailor would be useless
without the labors of the astronomer.
If we have any higher regard for the
celestial phenomena, stars and planets
meteors and comets, and so forth, than
Is involved in this unitarian view, 1t Is
connected with the dazzling wonders OF
which the astronomer has to tell US, and
his fairy tales concerning the origin OF
the universe and the nature of the sys
tems in which "other planets circle 9TH
er suns"
Some Curious Beliefs.
But when man first raised his eyes to
the heavens-wbether he did so in digni-
fed obedience to his Creator or in dun
aIndZeHnGDL IIldL ne no AOuBtI NNAtA vi
four feet-it was rather in the spirit pre-
served by the Chinese emperor, alone
among potentates, that he regarded the
stars. Anthropologists have given us
many theories to account for the undis-
puted fact that the stars and planets
were, in all parts Of the world, looked
upon by primitive man as the rulers OF
his fortune and arbiters of his fate No
doubt the obvious control of the sun over
the seasons and the harvests-so impor-
tant a part of early life-and that of the
moon over the tides, were the first fac
tors in the worship that man soon learn
ed to pay to the lights of the heavens.
After the actual identification of the
heavenly bodies with the gods, which
found a very recent avatar in the me-
diaeval theory that each planet was kept
in its complicated orbit of cycles and cpl
cycles by an attendant angel, came the
later and more reasonable belief that the
movements of the stars must be signs
Of the celestial will, even if they had not
such actual influence on the affairs of
men as the moon obviously had over the
tides. Its natural origin could hardly be
better explained than in the fine verses
of Byron, which sum up the feelings that
made Chaldeans and Zulus, OJibways and
Eskimos, Tycho Brahe and Paracelsus,
Wallenstedn and Napoleon, agree in the
attribution of such powers of prediction,
IL not of influence, to the stars
Ye stars! which are the poetry OF heay-
en-!
If in your bright leaves we would learn
the fate
OF men and empires-'tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o'erleap their moral state,
And claim a kindred with you; for We
are
A beauty and a mystery. and create
In us such love and reverence from afar
That fortune. fame. power. life. have
named themselves a star.
EIany CreduIOus EngIishmen.
We need only refer to such words as
disastrous" 'ill-starred," ascendency''
or ''jovial" to remind ourselves of the
depth to which this ancient belief rooted
itself in European ways of thought. AS
late as the seventeenth century the wis
est man held with Bacon and Sir Thomas
Brown that there might be much truth in
a sober and regulated astrology. The
House Of Commons called the famous
William Lilly before 1t in 1866 to inquire
how he had been able to predict the great
fire and the plague, as he certainly had
done under cover of one of his ingenious
hieroglyphics, and treated him with
great ctVillty" on his assurance that the
prediction had been made according to
all the rules of Ptolemy and Avicenna.
The scientific belief in astrology was
first really broken down-as It was in
the mind of Dominic Sampson-by the
opinion of "Sir Isaac Newton, knight,
and awhile master of His Majesty $
mint, that the (pretended) science of as
trology is altogether vain, frivolous and
unsatisfactory. Indeed, when the law
of gravitation and the immense size and
distances of the heavenly bodies were
once accepted the theory that the stars
and planets were designed merely to
foreshadow the destinies of man could
hardly be continued. Among the vulgar
astrology got its most serious blow
about the same time from the wit of
Swift, who amused himself by attacking
Partridge, the almanac-maker," and lead
astrologer of the time. The series of pam
phlets that clustered round Bickerstaff S
famous prediction of this wretched mans
death, and in which Swift showed how
unreasonable 1t was of Partridge to at
tempt to maintain that he was still alive,
form one of the most amusing and useful
squibs in literature. Astrology was fairly
laughed out of court All the same, Napo-
leon believed most firmly in his star, and
the Chinese court-where Swift II per-
haps not read-still keeps official astrol-
ogers. 1t is not easy to kill a natural
and pleasant superstition in the mind
Of man, whether by science or by liter
allure.