The Destinies of the Stars. Svante Arrhenius
like the Jews, utilize the position of the Moon for determination of the Church calendar, and we employ the same means for fixing Easter time. The Mohammedans reckon with a year of 12 synodical months. Twelve such months contain only 354.4 days while a solar year comprises 365.24 days, and as a rule, therefore, the synodical month was rounded to 30 days instead of 29.53 and the solar year to 360 days. Such was the arrangement in Egypt and originally also in Babylon. Primitive men comprehend fractions only with extreme difficulty. In order to correct the discrepancies, odd months were introduced about every sixth year.
From this time we may trace the high reputation of the number twelve. The Zodiac was divided into twelve houses in each of which the Sun was to dwell a month at a time. Day and night were each divided into twelve hours. The circle was divided into 360 degrees corresponding to the number of days of the year, so that the position of the Sun at noon should proceed one degree of the heaven from day to day. As the Moon dominated chronometry, a complication which must have caused considerable confusion was in many places introduced. We have seen that the Australian negroes gave four different names to the Moon in its four different phases. The great change in appearance of the Moon from quarter to quarter makes such a division natural. The synodical month was therefore made to consist of four parts, called weeks. As the length of a month is 29.53 days, the nearest number evenly divisible by four, namely 28, was substituted, and so seven days were allotted to each week, thus introducing an error of not less than 5.5%.
To the establishment of this week the assumption of seven wandering stars has no doubt largely contributed. The priests had discovered that besides Sun, Moon, and Venus, four other stars shift their position on the firmament with reference to the fixed stars, which latter appear always to maintain their relative distances. These four wandering stars were Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Each day in the week was dedicated to one of the seven wandering stars and received its name. These names have been maintained to the present day, for instance, Sunday, the Sun’s day, Monday, the Moon’s day, etc. The lunar calendar, established through religious considerations, supplanted the more rational one, which latter, however, survived in Egypt, and was reinstated in the Occident during the French revolution, although unfortunately only for a short time (1793–1805). As a result, the synodical month, in order to suit the calendar, has been changed not only with half a day to thirty days, but also with one and a half days to twenty-eight days. If decades had been adhered to we would have had months of even thirty days and either five leap months of thirty-one days each (during leap year six) or half a decade interpolated at new year.
Besides the seven wandering stars known to antiquity (at present over eight hundred planets have been observed), several other stars and constellations played an important part. The Magellanic clouds, considered of evil nature, and the Pleiades appealed already to the Australian negroes. In the northern hemisphere, where the opportunity of observing the Magellanic clouds is small, situated as they are near the South Pole, the Pleiades have attracted the greater attention and the Phœnicians especially appear to have taken interest in this constellation. From them, reverence for the Pleiades spread to a large part of Africa, where we now to our surprise find this star cluster reproduced along with symbols of Sun, Moon, and Venus. Homer also mentions the Pleiades and a few other constellations, namely, the Hyades, Orion, the Great Bear, and the stars Sirius and Arcturus. At all events, the Pleiades have frequently occupied a unique position in the old world. Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, and Canopus, the second in brightness, also belonging to the southern hemisphere but only half as far removed from the South Pole as Sirius, have both evoked the attention and the worship of the primitive people, in this case the South Africans.
At length, the nations, particularly the Babylonians and the Mexicans, acquired a wider knowledge of the different stars. As the most important ones, Sun, Moon, and Venus, guided the seasons and hence all natural phenomena, a certain mundane significance was naturally ascribed also to the younger ones. Not only seasons, months, days, and hours were each ruled by its star, but so was everything in nature; different winds, provinces, trades, bodily organs, animals, persons, each possessed its star and celestial protector. Comprehensive studies of these correspondences and connections were made and the conclusions were drawn from immaterial semblances and often wholly arbitrarily—as regards persons from the configuration of the stars at the time of birth. Thus grew an enormously extensive collection of correspondence- and sympathy-doctrines accompanied by a detailed symbolism, an entire quasi-science, which must never be questioned as it originated with the infallible priests. With the Babylonians, religion and science completely melted together and even art was entirely subservient to the same interests. Occasionally the loss of this blissful state draws forth a sigh. Fortunately it is gone never to return.
The oriental wisdom was brought over to Greece and was there amalgamated with the Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy. In this form the Babylonian heritage held sway over the thought of mankind up to less than 200 years ago. The most important branches of this fanciful, so-called science were astrology and alchemy. Tycho Brahe himself made it the object of his life to strengthen astrology by contributing new material to it. Kepler is said not to have believed in astrology but he nevertheless cast horoscopes not only for princes and persons of high position in order to improve his economy, but also for his own family. Probably traces of the old superstition clung to him, and presumably he thought: “If it does no good, neither does it do any harm.”
In the same manner, alchemy was carried on by faithful adepts, but more often by impostors, seldom averse to “occult” sciences. Astrologers and alchemists exist even yet among the numerous devotees to occultism; at high price many of them make their predictions or sell their secrets. I have heard a Swedish engineer of very high standing state that their prognostications agreed with events. Among the few alchemists in Europe, most of whom seem to be religious visionaries, Strindberg is of a certain interest to us. Correspondence-theory has played a very large part in the speculations of the learned up to comparatively recent time. It is utilized extensively in the later fantastic writings of Swedenborg. Numerous traces are to be found also in the weakest works of Strindberg.
The renowned French chemist, Berthelot, has given a valuable analysis of the alchemist’s method of treating chemical phenomena. His general conclusion is that the false principles which led the alchemists astray revert back to Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophical theories regarding the composition of matter. Something similar can be said of astrology. It plays with ideas of its own fabrication with hardly any foundation in reality. The result is almost wholly without value.
The greatest astronomer in Babylon, Kidinnu (about 200 B.C.), constructed tables of great accuracy giving the position of the stars. In this work he utilized observations gathered over thousands of years. These ephemerides were also intended as scripture source for reading the fate of men and for determination of the auspicious moment for the commencement of an undertaking. At all events, they placed great revenue and power over souls in the hands of the ruling priesthood. It does not appear that these priests were able to rise to an attempt of a physical explanation as to the nature of the stellar bodies. That was probably also considered dangerous. The stars were deities composed of purer and more refined matter than found on Earth. It were not improbable that the gods would inflict vengeance on the presumptuous one who dared to intrude upon their secrets and pass judgment on their peculiarities.
Fortunately, there existed in Greece another tendency in philosophy besides the scholastic and the Platonic-Aristotelian. But this was mainly represented in southern Italy, Sicily, and later in Alexandria. Already the followers of Pythagoras had made important progress toward a solution of the stellar problems. The crowning point was reached by Aristarchos from Samos, who lived in Alexandria about 2100 years ago. He established 1700 years before Copernicus the heliocentric system. It is often said that his work was of little value, as Copernicus nevertheless must do it over again. It is then forgotten that Copernicus himself cites the philosophers of antiquity who expressed theories in agreement with the heliocentric system and expressly states that he was bold enough to advance his hypotheses because so many prominent authorities could be mentioned who favoured them. Copernicus did not dare entirely to break away from the Ptolemaic system, and was inconsistent enough partly to use it in his calculations of the motions of the stars.
We have lately advanced farther along the road of Pythagoras and Aristarchos, of Copernicus