RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES.	153
was the primitive mode of expressing the same Idea as that which is expressed in Genesis by saying that God created the firmament separating the heaven above from the earth beneath ; Assur and Kesar mean the same thing as the hosts of heaven and the earth ; the god Bel is the sun. and so forth. It is evident that the first attempts to explain the phenomena of nature originated in the idea that motion and power implied life, personality, and conscious will; and therefore that the earth, sky, sun, moon, and other grand and striking phenomena, must be regarded as separate gods.
As culture advanced astronomy became more and more prominent in these early religions, and solar myths became a principal part of their mythologies, while astrology, or the influence of planets and stars on human affairs, became an important part of practical life. The Chaldecan legend referred to contains a mass of astronomical knowledge, which in the Genesis edition is reduced to ' He made the stars also/ It describes how the constellations were assigned their forms and names, the twelve signs of the zodiac established, the year divided into twelve months, the equinoxes determined, and the seasons set their bounds. Also how the moon was made to regulate the months by its disc, ^4 horns shining forth to lighten the heavens, which on the seventh day approaches a circle.^9
In the still older Egyptian pyramids we find proof of the long previous existence of great astronomical knowledge and refined methods of observation, for these buildings, which are at once the largest and the oldest in the world, are laid down so exactly in a meridian line, and with such a close approximation to the true latitude, as would have otherwise been impossible. In