In this rapid survey of the face of the sky, we have not been able to do more than touch in the broadest manner upon some of the most noticeable star groups and a few of the most remarkable stars. To go any further is not a part of our purpose; our object being to deal with celestial bodies as they actually are, and not in those groupings under which they display themselves to us as a mere result of perspective. [29] Attention must here be drawn to the fact that the name of the constellation is always put in the genitive case. [30] The early peoples, as we have seen, appear to have been attracted by those groupings of the stars which reminded them in a way of the figures of men and animals. We moderns, on the other hand, seek almost instinctively for geometrical arrangements. This is, perhaps, symptomatic of the evolution of the race. In the growth of the individual we find, for example, something analogous. A child, who has been given pencil and paper, is almost certain to produce grotesque drawings of men and animals; whereas the idle and half-conscious scribblings which a man may make upon his blotting-paper are usually of a geometrical character. [31] Because the line joining them _points_ in the direction of the Pole Star. CHAPTER XXIV SYSTEMS OF STARS Many stars are seen comparatively close together. This may plainly arise from two reasons. Firstly, the stars may happen to be almost in the same line of sight; that is to say, seen in nearly the same direction; and though one star may be ever so much nearer to us than the other, the result will give all the appearance of a related pair. A seeming arrangement of two stars in this way is known as a "double," or double star; or, indeed, to be very precise, an "optical double." Secondly, in a pair of stars, both bodies may be about the same distance from us, and actually connected as a system like, for instance, the moon and the earth. A pairing of stars in this way, though often casually alluded to as a double star, is properly termed a "binary," or binary system. But collocations of stars are by no means limited to two. We find, indeed, all over the sky such arrangements in which there are three or more stars; and these are technically known as "triple" or "multiple" stars respectively. Further, groups are found in which a great number of stars are closely massed together, such a massing together of stars being known as a "cluster."