Hesper and Phosphor

Abstract

IN his “History of the Inductive Sciences”(vol. i. p. 149, London, 1847), Whewell says:—“Pythagoras is said to have maintained that the evening and morning stars are the same body, which certainly must have been one of the earliest discoveries on this subject; and indeed, we can hardly conceive men noticing the stars for a year or two without coming to this conclusion” (cf. “The Planet Venus,” by W. J. L., in NATURE, vol. xlix. p. 413). Now, what Whewell deemed so hardly conceivable appears to have actually occurred in old China. Wang Chung, the philosopher (circa 27–97 A.D.), in his work, renowned for its total repudiation of the then current errors, writes as follows:—“In the ‘Book of Poems’ it is said, ‘Ki-ming(Phosphor)exists in the east, and Chang-kang(Hesper) in the west.’ In fact, however, they are but the phases of Jupiter and Venus, which, appearing now in the east, now in the west, received such distinct names from the ignorant bards” (“Lun-hang,” Miura's edition, Kyôto, 1748, torn. xvii. pp. 12–13). Two facts are manifested in this passage. First, it shows that, celebrated for their astronomical acquirements in very archaic ages, as they are, the fact that the evening and morning stars are the same body, was not known to the Chinese of the eighth century B.C., when the poem entitled “ Ta-tung” was composed, comprising the above-quoted line. Secondly, it shows that, even after the identity was established of the evening and morning stars, some Chinese, so well learned as Wang Chung, were ignorant of their own error: affirming that Jupiter as well as Venus appears now as Phosphor, now as Hesper, they have admitted the existence of two distinct Phosphori and two distinct Hesperi, and of a Phosphor essentially different from a Hesper. It is probable that some later scholars have tried to evade this intricacy by arbitrarily apportioning the two phases between the two planets; thus, Minamoto-no-Shita-zau, the Japanese poet and glossarist (909–983 A.D.), referring to a Chinese work “ Kien-ming-yuen,” which is perhaps lost now, identifies Jupiter (in Chinese: Sui-sing) with Phosphor (in Japanese: Aka-boshi), and Venus (in Chinese: Tai-peh) with Hesper (in Japanese: YÛtsutsu) (“Wamyô Ruijushô,” Nawa's edition, Kyôto, 1667, torn. i. p. 1).