When beggars die there are no comets seen, The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of Princes. From this we may conclude that the gods are not democratic, but favour individualism of the most pronounced type; and if, as would seem to be the case, the whole trend of evolution is the specialization of faculty, the elaboration of the unit from the mass, we can readily understand why specially selected cosmical conditions attend the incarnation of highly-evolved souls. CHAPTER VI COSMIC SYMBOLOGY A consideration of great astronomical epochs naturally leads to the more comprehensive subject of Periodicity and the Law of Cycles. Some notes in my former works have raised special points of inquiry which may very well be dealt with in the present chapter. What is known as the Great Year of Plato is one of those occult statements which seem to point to the existence among Initiates of some degree of special knowledge in cosmical facts. The observation of the Precession of the Equinoxes is usually ascribed to Hipparchus, who lived in the Second Century B.C. By comparison of the star positions in his day with those of Timocharis a century earlier, it was found that while maintaining their relative distances from one another and from the ecliptic, the stars had altered their positions in regard to the equinox, and a rough calculation showed that they were moving at the rate of about 50´´ per year. Observations of particular stars, while confirming the fact of their change of longitude, did not yield uniform results, and this no doubt was due to the imperfection of the instruments employed. Thus in regard to the star Spica Virginis we have the following observations of its longitude at various dates by independent authorities— Timocharis, B.C. 293, Spica observed in Virgo, 22° 20´ Hipparchus, ” 145, ” ” ” 24° 20´ Menelaus, A.D. 99, ” ” ” 26° 15´ Ptolemy, ” 139, ” ” ” 26° 30´ Copernicus, ” 1515, ” ” Libra, 17° 14´ ” ” 1525, ” ” ” 17° 21´ Naut. Al., ” 1820, ” ” ” 21° 20´