tificial signs,
we will notice only the one attributed by Volney to the Egyptians.
The constellations in which the sun successively appeared from
month to month were named thus: at the time of the overflow of the
Nile, the stars of inundation, (Aquarius;) at the time of
ploughing, stars of the ox, (Taurus;) when lions, driven forth by
thirst, appeared on the banks of the Nile, stars of the lion,
(Leo;) at the time of reaping, stars of the sheaf, (Virgo;) stars
of the lamb and two kids, (Aries,) when these animals were born;
stars of the crab, (Cancer,) when the sun, touching the tropic,
returned backwards; stars of the wild goat, (Capricorn,) when the
sun reached the highest point in his yearly track; stars of the
balance, (Libra,) when days and nights were in equilibrium; stars
of the scorpion, (Scorpio,) when periodical simooms burned like
the venom of a scorpion; and so on of the rest.28

The progress of astronomical science from the wild time when men
thought the stars were mere spangles stuck in a solid expanse not
far off, to the vigorous age when Ptolemy's mathematics spanned
the scope of the sky; from the first reverent observations of the
Chaldean shepherds watching the constellations as gods, to the
magnificent reasonings of Copernicus dashing down the innumerable
crystalline spheres, "cycle on epicycle, orb on orb," with which
crude theorizers had crowded the stellar spaces; from the uncurbed
poetry of Hyginus writing the floor of heaven over with romantic
myths in planetary words, to the more wondrous truth of Le Verrier
measuring the steps from nimble Mercury flitting moth like in the
beard of the sun to dull Neptune sagging in his cold course twenty
six hundred million miles away; from the half inch orb of
Hipparchus's naked eye, to the six feet speculum of Rosse's awful
tube; from the primeval belief in one world studded around with
skyey torch lights, to the modern conviction of octillions of
inhabited worlds all governed by one law constitutes the most
astonishing chapter in the history of the human mind. Every step
of this incredible progress has had its effect in modifying the
conceptions of man's position and importance in nature and of the
connection of his future fate with localities. Of old, the entire
creation was thought to lie pretty much within the comprehension
of man's unaided senses, and man himself was supposed to be the
chief if not the sole object of Divine providence. The deities
oft