The pentacle has been observed on a figure of Anubis, in Egypt. It is stated1 that it was used on coins of Antiochus Epiphanes, and also2 of Lysimachus. I have seen it stated somewhere that it is one of the old sect marks of the Hindus; but this is an error, I believe. By referring to Coleman's or Birdwood's work, it will be found that it is Solomon's seal which has been so used. It was one of the totems of the American Indians. Dawson gives a picture of it as seen sculptured on the Roches Percées, a remarkable solitary mass of sandstone on the plains west of Manitoba.

I have said that the pentacle has been observed on a figure of Anubis. It would appear to have been well known and highly prized by the early Egyptians, or rather, perhaps, I should say Egypto-Chaldeans, if a recent writer, Mr. Robert Ballard, is to be believed. He declares that "it is the geometric emblem of extreme and mean ratio, and the symbol of the Egyptian pyramid, Cheops." Let a pentacle be formed within a circle. Around the interior pentagon of it describe a circle. Around this circle form a square. "Then will the square represent the base of Cheops." Again, draw two diameters to the outer circle, intersecting at right angles, and each parallel to a side of the square. "Then will the parts of those diameters, between the square and the outer circle, represent the four apothems of the four slant-sides of the pyramid." Still again, connect by lines the angles of the square with the outer circle at the four points indicated by the ends of the

'Broughton's Italy, vol. ii.

2 Notes and Queries, vol. ix, p. 511, third series.

8 Mythology of the Hindus. London, 1832.

'Indian Arts. London, 1880.

5 Fossil Men and their Modern Representatives, p. 272. London, 1880.

The Solution of the Pyramid Problem, p. 92. New York, 1882.

diameters. Then "the star of the pyramid is formed, which, when closed as a solid, will be a correct model of Cheops."

Mr. Ballard, it is to be feared, like Mr. Piazzi Smyth, has not the power to perceive coincidences and afterthoughts. His book, however, is decidedly original and interesting.

I may observe that if the plan of the great pyramid was fashioned after the pentacle, and Mr. Proctor be right in saying that it is identical with "the ordinary square scheme of nativity," the figure of the astrologers

FIG. 28.-THE PENTACLE AND THE GREAT PYRAMID.

used in casting horoscopes, it follows that the pentacle furnishes also a key to the latter. Then, if it be a fact that the pyramid was designed by and constructed under the superintendence of early Chaldeans, one has reason to infer that the pentacle was of Oriental origin. Probably it was at first a symbol of the sun,-a purpose for which it has been used by different bodies of mystics, and others.

It is interesting to notice that the figure was one of the symbols of the great hero-myth, Quetzalcoatl, a The Great Pyramid, p. 35.

light-god according to some, but really, according to Reville,1 a god of the wind, who was generally represented in the form of a feathered serpent. Thus Dr. Brinton says: "In one of the earliest myths he is called Yahualli ehecatl, meaning 'the wheel of the winds,' the winds being portrayed in the picture-writing as a circle or wheel, with a figure with five angles inscribed upon it, the sacred pentagram. His image carried in the left hand this wheel, and in the right a sceptre with the end recurved."2

The pentacle has been accorded great potency, and used extensively to keep off witches and all sorts of evil influences, including the devil himself, and hence it has. served purposes very similar to those to which the horseshoe has often been put. Aubrey says that it was formerly used by the Greek Christians, as the sign of the cross is now, "at the beginning of letters or books for good luck's sake,"3-something which old John Evelyn was wont to do in his works, and as Southey placed the puzzling monogram,1 meant, perhaps, to have similar significance on the title-page of his book, "The Doctor." One is found in the western window of the south aisle of Westminster Abbey, which, doubtless, the black monks, as they chanted in the choir, often looked on with superstitious emotion. It may be seen on many a cradle and threshold at the present day in the Fatherland.

The readers of Goethe's great work will remember that Dr. Faust had one on his threshold, and that, when he began to perceive that there was something decidedly

The Native Religions of Mexico and Peru, p. 57. New York, 1884. "American Hero-Myths, p. 121.

3 Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, p. 51.

An equalateral triangle divided into three equal triangles by lines meeting from the three angles.

suspicious about the character of the "poodle," he remarked that

"Für solche halbe Höllenbrut

Ist Salomonis Schlüssel gut."

How Mephistopheles himself got in was afterward explained by his showing that one of the angles of the Drudenfuss was left open.

66

Disciples of the Samian sage, cabalistic1 Jews and Arabians, and others, especially Gnostics, long viewed the pentacle as a symbol of health, and made use of it as

FIG. 29.-HYGEIA, A SYMBOL OF HEALTH.

an amulet, calling it Hygeia, the name of the goddess of health. It was so called, and to some extent, likely for a similar reason, regarded as a sacred symbol of health, because it could be resolved, it was believed, into

1 Professors of the Cabbala, a mystic philosophy, believed that there was a secret meaning in Holy Writ and a higher meaning in the law, and pretended to be able to perform miracles by the use of names and incantations. Auerbach gives an interesting account of them in his novel, "Spinoza." He gives this as an instance of their mode of reasoning: "The Hebrew word for Messiah contains the same number as the Hebrew word for serpent, in which form Satan seduced Eve; the Messiah will, therefore, bruise the head of the serpent and banish sin and death from the world."

It

the Greek letters which form the word Hygeia; and these were placed one on each point of the figure.1 was accepted, in fact, as a sort of rebus of the name of the celebrated daughter of Æsculapius. The scholarly and ingenious reader may be able to trace, more or less definitely, this reputed similarity. It is an interesting feature of what is certainly a very remarkable figure.

1 The word Salus, the synonymous Latin name, was also used in the same way. In Mrs. Pelliser's work it is thus seen. It is there spoken of as a device used by Marguerite of France, wife of Henry IV and the last of the Valois.