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 correct, or that they are easy to make. They say that there are two stars diametrically opposite which pass through the zodiac in 144 years; nothing can be made of this period, nor yet of another equally problematical one of 180 years; but if we multiply the two together we obtain 25,920, which is very nearly the length of the cycle for the precession of the equinoxes.
In this review of the ancient ideas of different peoples, we have followed the most probable order in considering that the observation of nature came first, and the different parts of it were afterwards individualized and named. It is proper to add that according to some ancient authors—such as Diodorus Siculus—the process was considered to have been the other way. That Uranus was an actual individual, that Atlas and Saturn were his sons or descendants or followers, and that because Atlas was a great astronomer he was said to support the heavens, and that his seven daughters were real, and being very spiritual they were regarded as goddesses after death and placed in heaven under the name of the Pleiades.
However, the universality of the ideas seems to forbid this interpretation, which is also in itself much less natural.
These various opinions lead us to remark, in conclusion, that the fables of ancient mythological astronomy must be interpreted by means of various keys. Allegory is the first—the allegory employed by philosophers and poets who have spoken in figurative language. Their words taken in the letter are quite unnatural, but many of the fables are simply the description or explanation of physical facts. Hieroglyphics are another key. Having become obscure by the lapse of time they sometimes, however, present ideas different from those which they originally expressed. It is pretty certain that hieroglyphics have been the source of the men with dogs' heads, or feet of goats, &c. Fables also arise from the adoption of strange words whose sound is something like another word in the borrowing language connected with other ideas, and the connection between the two has to be made by fable.
CHAPTER II.
ASTRONOMY OF THE CELTS.
The numerous stone monuments that are to be found scattered over this country, and over the neighbouring parts of Normandy, have given rise to many controversies as to their origin and use. By some they have been supposed to be mere sepulchral monuments erected in late times since the Roman occupation of Great Britain. Such an idea has little to rest upon, and we prefer to regard them, as they have always been regarded, as relics of the Druidical worship of the Celtic or Gaulish races that preceded us in this part of Europe.