The Destinies of the Stars. Svante Arrhenius
a star lies a hundred or a thousand billion miles from the Sun, or from understanding how the stellar bodies have evolved in the course of billions of years? And yet astronomy has not been as futile as is commonly imagined, neither is it useless at the present time. This science is still of the greatest importance to common life by fixing our standards of time and, before the introduction of the compass, was invaluable also to navigation, which art, moreover, depends now upon astronomy for determination of geographical position on the open sea. Observations for these purposes, however, are of such a simple nature, that they hardly fall under the astronomical science proper, but rather under the applied sciences. They have entered into daily life much as, in commerce, the determination of the weight of a body is not considered as belonging to the science of physics, although it depends on the use of a physical instrument, the scale.
But we must not forget that what we now consider so commonplace that it entirely has lost the grand aspect of science, once was the goal of groping scientific endeavour. All natural science has grown out of the needs of practical life.
Geometry is probably even older than astronomy. The name means: to measure land, and the oldest geometry was, accordingly, devoted to the measurement of distances on the Earth and later to the determination of the area of land-holdings. This extremely important practical application of geometry is of such a simple nature that it is not mentioned in modern mathematical science, to which geometry belongs. In this manner, the original theses of all our natural sciences have become the possession of the public to such a degree that they are looked upon as self-evident. This is the case also with those parts of astronomy which, because of their practical importance at the outset, gave rise to the science itself.
The growing knowledge about the stars, like all higher insight, became among primitive peoples the private possession of their leaders, was by these kept a secret and made a part of the venerable realm of religion. We find that a majority of these old peoples rendered worship to the stars, believing them to govern the fates of human beings. This may indeed seem highly remarkable, as our everyday experience is that the stellar bodies, with the exception of the Sun, exert no perceptible influence on organic nature, and such conclusion is emphatically confirmed by the systematic collection of all our experiences which we call modern science. The Sun, as stated, is the exception as it reigns over the entire nature, the living as well as the lifeless, by virtue of the heat and light which abundantly flow from this autocrat of our planetary system. Perhaps the Moon also plays some small active part as it seems somewhat to affect the barometric pressure, the magnetic and particularly the electric conditions of the atmosphere, which, in turn, appear to influence several life processes. On the other hand we cannot point to any influence upon nature traceable to the other stellar bodies.
Obviously, primitive man devoted his thoughts only to such conditions as affected his interests in a beneficial or detrimental way. On the assumption that these conditions were governed by spirits who resembled man and who in particular were endowed with will, our ancestors endeavoured by sacrifice and exorcism to move the spirits they feared to discontinue their harmful activity. Some such spirits dwelt in beasts of prey and in other noxious animals, such as poisonous snakes; others caused earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, snowstorms, lightning ravages, fires, floods, heat, drought, etc. Against these calamities religious exercises formed a protection. Religion sprang mainly from fear of spirits. Later on thank offerings and hymns were bestowed upon benevolent objects and phenomena in nature.
It is evident that this primitive, simple religion is of far greater age than star-worship. The latter presupposes a comparatively high degree of culture. The stars were of no benefit to man until it became necessary to measure time intervals comprising a greater number of days than might be counted on one’s fingers. How this growth in all probability took place we shall endeavour to explain in the following. Fairly certain it is that star-worship did not grow out of man’s admiration for the sublime drama which at dawn of morning commences at the eastern horizon, and proceeds in the course of a day over the firmament in order to close before night just beyond the western expanses, neither was it founded on man’s gratitude toward the torch-bearers of night for their incessant battle against gloomy clouds and all the other spirits of darkness.
Even tribes on a rather low stage have no doubt noticed the most conspicuous among the stellar bodies. The attitude of the Australian aborigines is significant in this connection. According to Spencer and Gillen they possess legends about the Moon, which is male, about the Sun and Venus, about the pernicious Magellanic clouds, and about the Pleiades, who, like the Sun and Venus, are considered female. Eclipses have, as is natural, attracted the greatest attention. While these primitive men indulge in an incredible number of religious ceremonies pertaining to conditions of their daily life, none of these exercises are devoted to the stars, if we except stone throwing against the Sun during eclipses. Even this treatment is left with considerable serenity of mind for the medicine-men to perform. It is very significant that all stellar bodies are of earthly origin, that the Moon is of male gender while the Sun, Venus, and the Pleiades are female, which indicates that the Moon is considered of greatest distinction. They count time according to “sleeps,” i.e. the number of times they have slept, or according to moons; longer periods according to seasons; they have names for summer and winter. They can count to five, or perhaps rather to four, as the term five also means “many.” Ideas of power centred in the stellar bodies are evidently absent and therefore also religious ceremonies pertaining thereto. A few tales exist relating to the stars as to other objects within their observation. Thus conditions would undoubtedly have remained but for the high value which the want of a chronometry gave to the regularly changing light of the stellar bodies.
The difference between day and night is of such a deeply fundamental importance that it has left its stamp on the whole organic nature on the surface of the Earth. Plants entirely change their life processes in the course of twenty-four hours; during the day they add to their growth under the stimulus of light; during the night they partly expend the strength gathered in daytime. This cycle is so regular that it functions automatically. The prominent botanist, Pfeffer, has experimented with a Mimosa, which, as is well known, unfolds its leaves during the day but curls them during the night. If left in a dark room any arbitrary day, it nevertheless uncurls its leaves. By means of electric light Pfeffer changed night into day for the plant kept in the dark room. It took considerable time before the plant adjusted itself to the new conditions so that it unfolded its leaves to the influence of the electric light. Animals behave similarly. The night and day period is instilled in their blood. In a certain sense they possess an instinctive chronometry.
It is often stated that the assurance of the return of sunlight after the darkness of night enabled humanity with greater equanimity to acquiesce in the loss of light during one half of its existence and that worship was rendered to the Sun in gratitude therefor. “A new outlook upon life,” says Troels Lund, “awakens the moment the great discovery is made that the night of sleep and the night of fear are equally long and always followed by morning and subsequent day.” This discovery, however, our predecessors made long before they reached the human stage. Sun-worship by no means derived its origin therefrom.
Rather it is traceable to evidence of the Sun’s connection with the changing seasons, although this change also is of domineering influence in the vegetable world inasmuch as the plants store reserve nourishment in the autumn, particularly, and on a large scale, during fructification. Also, lower and higher animals, for example, bees and squirrels, gather winter-stores. It is therefore small wonder if men on a comparatively low stage lay in provisions for the recurring periods of scant food supply.
But a true chronometry beyond five days is foreign to the Australian negro as long as he can only count to four or five. He is aware that Moon-phases reappear and that summer and winter return, but he has no conception of the duration of the time passed between the recurrences of these phenomena. Further progress was made by the people who took the bold step to count the fingers, not on one hand alone, but on both hands, and thus reached the number ten. This was utilized in reckoning time so that the larger unit became a decade, i.e. ten days and nights. This unit was original with the Indo-Europeans, Semites, Hindus, Egyptians, and the islanders in the Pacific Ocean. Another advance yet was made in Mexico where the number twenty was introduced corresponding to the sum of all fingers and toes, and thus a unit of time was obtained