tage were presented, or the flesh of
lambs and goats consumed, would be figured among the innumerable
combinations which a fanciful eye can recognise among the orbs of
heaven.

In thus suggesting that the first observers of the heavens were
shepherds, huntsmen, and husbandmen, I am not advancing a theory on the
difficult questions connected with the origin of exact astronomy. The
first observations of the heavens were of necessity made by men who
depended for their subsistence on a familiarity with the progress and
vicissitudes of the seasons, and doubtless preceded by many ages the
study of astronomy as a science. And yet the observations made by those
early shepherds and hunters, unscientific though they must have been in
themselves, are full of interest to the student of modern exact
astronomy. The assertion may seem strange at first sight, but is
nevertheless strictly true, that if we could but learn with certainty
the names assigned to certain star-groups, before astronomy had any real
existence, we could deduce lessons of extreme importance from the rough
observations which suggested those old names. In these days, when
observations of such marvellous exactness are daily and nightly made,
when instruments capable of revealing the actual constitution of the
stars are employed, and observers are so numerous, it may seem strange
to attach any interest to the question whether half-savage races
recognised in such and such a star-group the likeness of a bear, or in
another group the semblance of a ship. But though we could learn more,
of course, from exacter observations, yet even such rough and imperfect
records would have their value. If we could be certain that in long-past
ages a star-group really resembled some known object, we should have in
the present resemblance of that group to the same object evidence of the
general constancy of stellar lustre, or if no resemblance could be
recognised we should have reason to doubt whether other suns (and
therefore our own sun) may not be liable to great changes.

The subject of the constellation-figures as first known is interesting
in other ways. For instance, it is full of interest to the antiquarian
(and most of us are to some degree antiquarians) as relating to the
most ancient of all human sciences. The same mental quality which causes
us to look with interest on the buildings raised in long-past ages, or
on the implements and weapons of antiquity, renders the thought