The various pursuits of husbandry, having all their necessary times, which in the primeval days were determined by the positions of the stars, would give rise to more important names. Thus the Ethiopian, at Thebes, would call the stars that by their rising at a particular time indicated the inundation, Aquarius, or the Waterer; those beneath which it was necessary to put the plough to the earth, the Bull stars. The Lion stars would be those at whose appearance this formidable animal, driven from the deserts by thirst, showed himself on the borders of the river. Those of the Ear of Corn, or the Virgin of harvest, those beneath which the harvest was to be gathered in; and the sign of the Goat, that in which the sun was when these animals were born. There can be but little doubt but that such was the origin of the names imposed, and for a time they would be understood in that sense. But afterwards, when time was more accurately kept, and calendars regulated, without each man studying the stars for himself, when the precession of the equinoxes made the periods not exactly coincide, the original meaning would be lost, the stars would be associated with the animals, as though there was a real bull, a real lion, &c., in the heavens; and then the step would be easy to represent these by living animals, whom they would endow with the heavenly attributes of what they represented; and so the people came at last to pray to and worship the several creatures for the sake of their supposed influence. They asked of the Ram from their flocks the influences they thought depended on the constellation. They prayed the Scorpion not to spread his evil venom on the world; they revered the Crab, the Scarabaeus, and the Fish, without perceiving the absurdity of it. It is certain at least that the gods of many nations are connected or are identical with the signs of the zodiac, and it seems at least more reasonable to suppose the former derived from the latter than _vice versa_.