=6.= The oldest of these philosophical or religious systems is that of the Chaldaeans, as the Romans termed a pastoral, star-gazing folk[4] presumably identical with the people which, in or about the year 2800 B.C.[5], mapped out the constellations as we now know them, traced the orbits of the planets[6], and predicted their future movements. This work was not carried out entirely in the spirit of modern science; it was further stimulated by the belief that the skies displayed a written message to mankind. But the nature of that message, of which fragments are possibly embodied in the names of the constellations, was not preserved to the Romans by any tradition. Two principles seem to have survived, those of the inexorable tie between cause and effect called ‘fate[7],’ and of the interdependence of events in heaven and on earth[8]. Hence arose the hope of prophetic insight into the future; and the people of Babylon, under Chaldaean influence, are said to have spent four hundred and seventy years in collecting observations of the history of boys born under particular combinations of the heavenly bodies[9]. We are not acquainted with the results of these observations; but undoubtedly they established a profession of astrologers, whose craft it was to observe the position of sun, moon and stars at a man’s birth or at some other critical hour, and thence to deduce his future character or career. These wanderers, called by the Romans ‘Chaldaei’ or ‘Mathematici,’ spread over all Europe, and founded a lucrative trade on men’s fears and ambitions. Philosophers studied their methods, and did not always entirely deny their validity[10]. In society the astrologer is a common figure[11]; he found his way to the chambers of princes[12], and was regularly consulted by conspirators. The dramatic scene in Walter Scott’s _Betrothed_ is as true in character to Roman times as to the Middle Ages. Roman literature is full of allusions to the horoscope[13]. But whether we attribute these practices to fraud or to self-deception, there is every reason to believe that they only form a diseased outgrowth from a system which at an earlier time was of much wider import. [Sidenote: Persism.]