g across it
might run straight into the constellation Leo or some other dreadful
beast; and this explained why direful things happened to this world,
which was supposed to be the only world in the universe. As the moon has
always been the most observed of all the heavenly bodies, and as she
passes most rapidly across the constellations of the zodiac, it is easy
to understand that her phases should excite profound wonder, and that
strange effects should be predicated upon these phases, called "changes"
from time immemorial. In fact, however, the moon is not "changing" at
one time any more than at another. She is continually passing in and out
of the earth's shadow as she revolves around the earth, and the width of
this shadow, with the state of being in the full light of the sun,
constitutes her phases or changes. She does not "enter" any sign of the
zodiac in the sense of entering, as understood by the illiterate; and if
she did, the signs Cancer, Leo, Virgo, have no comprehensible relation,
to plants or parts of the human body. Again, if the moon or sun, or any
of the planets, are said to "enter" these signs, they are not now the
same as the constellations known as the Crab, the Lion, the Virgin. They
did correspond some two thousand or more years ago, when the zodiacal
belt was divided into twelve parts and named; but at present, on account
of the nutation or gyratory motion of the poles of the earth, the signs
of the zodiac (not the constellations) are drifting westward at the rate
of one degree in about seventy-one years. This movement is known in
astronomy as the precession or recession of the equinoxes. It happens,
therefore, that when the astrologer consults his tables, and finds that,
at, the time of the birth of a person whose horoscope he is going to
cast, Venus was in Cancer--a terrible condition of things for happiness
in love--Venus is in reality passing the constellation Gemini or the
Twins, which ought to make everything all lovely. The development of the
Copernican system did a great deal of damage to the interests of
astrology, but it was not until the discovery of the precession of the
equinoxes that this venerable and pretentious art received its
death-blow. To be sure, "the fools are not all dead yet," for certain
people still pay five dollars to have their horoscopes cast, and not a
few rustics consult the moon or the almanac before planting beans or
weaning calves.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.