Architectvre, Mysticism and Myth (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1892. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... chapter vi the planetary spheres 'And after shewed hym the nyne sfheris And after that the melodye herd he, That cometh of thilke speris thries thre; That welleys of musyke ben and melodye In this world here and cause of armonye.'--Chaucer. he number seven is written on the sky. What X time the seven planets were counted and individualised is beyond all history; probably not two in a hundred even now guess at any other planet than Venus; probably not two in a thousand have ever seen Mercury, certainly not without a telescopeyet all of them we find distinguished by names and grouped together as errant bodies among the fixed stars in the earliest traditions: --(i) The Sun, (2) the Moon, (3) Mars, (4) Mercury, (5) Jupiter, (6) Venus, (7) Saturn. The first known and named probably of all constellations, the Great Bear, always visible above the horizon, ' never bathing in ocean, ' as Homer has it, is a group of seven. The lesser Bear has the same form, which is repeated a third time by the great square of Pegasus, and the three bright stars in Andromeda and Perseus. Seven also are the symmetrical and splendid stars of Orion. In France, the Pleiades are still called the 'seven stars, ' and the 138 north is named the Septentrion, from the stars of the Great Bear. The planets gave their names to the days of the week, and still distinguish them all over the world from France to China, and they are but slightly obscured for us by their northern names. The seven days of the week are the nearest whole number to one-fourth of a month, a moon's quarter. The two days completing the month of thirty days were in Assyria intercalary. Immense has been the influence of this magic number in philosophy, material and metaphysical. The life of man has been divided into seven ages. The firs...