On the other hand, the arguments for the Egyptians, or Chaldeans being the originators depend solely on the tradition handed down by many, that one or other are the oldest people in the world, with the oldest civilization, and they have long cultivated astronomy. More precise information, however, seems to render these traditions, to say the least, doubtful, and certainly incapable of overthrowing the arguments adduced above.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ZODIAC.
The zodiac, as already stated, is the course in the heavens apparently pursued by the sun in his annual journey through the stars. Let us consider for a moment, however, the series of observations and reflections that must have been necessary to trace this zone as representing such a course.
First, the diurnal motion of the whole heavens from east to west must have been noticed during the night, and the fact that certain stars never set, but turn in a circle round a fixed point. What becomes then, the next question would be, of those stars that do descend beneath the horizon, since they rise in the same relative positions as those in which they set. They could not be thought to be destroyed, but must complete the part of the circle that is invisible beneath the earth. The possibility of any stars finding a path beneath the earth must have led inevitably to the conception of the earth as a body suspended in the centre with nothing to support it. But leaving this alone, it would also be concluded that the sun went with the stars, and was in a certain position among them, even when both they and it were invisible. The next observations necessary would be that the zodiacal constellations visible during the nights of winter were not the same as those seen in summer, that such and such a group of stars passed the meridian at midnight at a certain time, and that six months afterwards the group exactly opposite in the heavens passed at the same hour. Now since at midnight the sun will be exactly opposite the meridian, if it continues uniformly on its course, it will be among that group of stars that is opposite the group that culminates at midnight, and so the sign of the zodiac the sun occupies would be determined.
This method would be checked by comparisons made in the morning and evening with the constellations visible nearest to the sun at its rising and setting.
The difficulty and indirectness of these observations would make it probable that originally the zodiac would be determined rather by the path of the moon, which follows nearly the same path as the sun, and which could be observed at the same time as, and actually associated with, the constellations. Now the moon is found each night so far to the east of its position on the previous night that it accomplishes the whole circumference in twenty-seven days eight hours. The two nearest whole number of days have generally been reckoned, some taking twenty-eight, and others twenty-seven. The zodiac, or, as the Chinese called it, the Yellow Way, was thus divided into twenty-eight parts, which were called Nakshatras (mansions, or hotels), because the moon remains in each of them for a period of twenty-four hours. These mansions were named after the brightest stars in each, though sometimes they went a long way off to fix upon a characteristic star, as in the sixteenth Indian constellation, Vichaca, which was named after the Northern Crown, in latitude 40°. This arose from the brightness of the moon extinguishing the light of those that lie nearest to it.
This method of dividing the zodiac was very widely spread, and was common to almost all ancient nations. The Chinese have twenty-eight constellations, but the word siou does not mean a group of stars, but simply a mansion or hotel. In the Coptic and ancient Egyptian the word for constellation has the same meaning. They also had twenty-eight, and the same number is found among the Arabians, Persians, and Indians. Among the Chaldeans, or Accadians, we find no sign of the number twenty-eight. The ecliptic or "Yoke of the Sky," with them, as we see in the newly-discovered tablets, was divided into twelve divisions as now, and the only connection that can be imagined between this and the twenty-eight is the opinion of M. Biot, who thinks that the Chinese had originally only twenty-four mansions, four more being added by Chenkung (B.C. 1100), and that they corresponded with the twenty-four stars, twelve to the north and twelve to the south, that marked the twelve signs of the zodiac among the Chaldeans. But under this supposition the twenty-eight has no reference to the moon, whereas we have every reason to believe that it has.