igin in magical practices,
and to the growth of popular education necessitated by the
centralization of business in the temples. It remains with us to deal
now with priestly contributions to the more abstruse sciences. In
India the ritualists among the Brahmans, who concerned themselves
greatly regarding the exact construction and measurements of altars,
gave the world algebra; the pyramid builders of Egypt, who erected
vast tombs to protect royal mummies, had perforce to lay the
groundwork of the science of geometry; and the Babylonian priests who
elaborated the study of astrology became great astronomers because
they found it necessary to observe and record accurately the movements
of the heavenly bodies.

From the earliest times of which we have knowledge, the religious
beliefs of the Sumerians had vague stellar associations. But it does
not follow that their myths were star myths to begin with. A people
who called constellations "the ram", "the bull", "the lion", or "the
scorpion", did not do so because astral groups suggested the forms of
animals, but rather because the animals had an earlier connection with
their religious life.

At the same time it should be recognized that the mystery of the stars
must ever have haunted the minds of primitive men. Night with all its
terrors appealed more strongly to their imaginations than refulgent
day when they felt more secure; they were concerned most regarding
what they feared most. Brooding in darkness regarding their fate, they
evidently associated the stars with the forces which influenced their
lives--the ghosts of ancestors, of totems, the spirits that brought
food or famine and controlled the seasons. As children see images in a
fire, so they saw human life reflected in the starry sky. To the
simple minds of early folks the great moon seemed to be the parent of
the numerous twinkling and moving orbs. In Babylon, indeed, the moon
was regarded as the father not only of the stars but of the sun also;
there, as elsewhere, lunar worship was older than solar worship.

Primitive beliefs regarding the stars were of similar character in
various parts of the world. But the importance which they assumed in
local mythologies depended in the first place on local phenomena. On
the northern Eur-Asian steppes, for instance, where stars vanished
during summer's blue nights, and were often obscured by clouds in
winter, they did not impress men's minds so persistently and deeply as