our prejudices, like those of the Arabian, will not permit us to see the folly of our own superstitions. Over each day and month the Persians and Arabians, as well as all the followers of the Magi or Magians, believed that a genius or angel presided, giving to each day or month the name of one of them. They had the same names as those of the Jews,—Gabriel, Michael, &c. The Jews say they took them from the Persians.
19. If my reader possess my Celtic Druids, I beg him to turn to the first chapter, section vi., and consider what is there said respecting the Lunar Cycle of twenty-eight days, and what is said afterward respecting the antiquity of the Chaldeans or Culdees, the priests of the first of the nations of the world, with their 360 crosses in Iona, their Metonic Cycles, &c., and the information afforded by Mr. Maurice in his Observations on the Ruins of Babylon, p. 29, that the Chaldeans of Babylon had a Lunar Zodiac consisting of twenty-eight mansions or houses, in which her orb was supposed to reside during the twenty-eight nights of her revolution, and I think he must be struck with the surprising manner in which my theory is supported by circumstances.
20. Plutarch, in his Treatise de Iside et Osiride,[1] states, that the division of Osiris into fourteen parts was a mythological mode of expression for the different phases of the moon during the increase and decrease of that orb. Mr. Maurice observes, that this “manifestly alludes to the different degrees of light which appear in the moon, and to the number of days in which she performs her course round the earth.”[2]
21. Porphyry distinctly notices the period of twenty-eight days with the Egyptians,[3] which he also observes was a Lunar period.
22. A traveller of the ancients, of the name of Jambulus, who visited Palibothra, and who resided seven years in one of the oriental islands, supposed to be Sumatra, states, that the inhabitants of it had an alphabet consisting of twenty-eight letters, divided into seven classes, each of four letters. There were seven original characters which, after undergoing four different variations each, constituted these seven classes. I think it is very difficult not to believe that the origin of the Chinese Lunar Zodiac and of these twenty-eight letters was the same, namely, the supposed length of the Lunar revolution. The island of Sumatra was, for many reasons, probably peopled from China.[4]
23. The Burmas keep four Sabbaths at the four phases of the moon, which shews the cycle of twenty-eight days.[5]
24. Astrologers had also in India another Lunar division. Mr. Colebrooke says, “Astrologers also reckon twenty-eight yogas, which correspond to the twenty-eight nacshatras or divisions of the moon’s path.”[6] These different astronomical systems are among the oldest of the records of the world which we possess, and come nearest to the time when the science of letters and arithmetic must have been discovered, and tend strongly to support my theory of man’s division of time into weeks, and the formation of his first arithmetic from the moon’s age.
25. During the time that man was making his observations on the motions of the Moon, he would also be trying many experiments on his newly-discovered circle. He would divide it into two, then into four; thus he would make radii. Whilst he was doing this, he would begin to observe that the Sun was like the Moon, in the circumstance that it was periodical; that it changed continually, and continually returned to what it was before, producing summer and winter, spring and autumn; that after it had blessed him for a certain time with warmth and comfort, and the supply of fruits necessary for his subsistence, it gradually withdrew; but that in a certain number of days it returned, as the Moon had always returned, nearly to its former situation. He would do as he had done with respect to the Moon, collect calculi, and deposit one for every day; and he would find that there were, as he supposed, three hundred and sixty days in a period of the Sun’s revolution. About this time, probably, he would hit upon the comparison of his period constantly returning into itself with his circle—the Sun’s endless period with his endless circle. He would deposit his calculi about the circumference of his circle. He would divide it by means of these calculi into two parts. He would then halve them cross-ways, thus making four pieces or segments of circles, each having ninety stones. He would halve the nineties, but he could go no lower with halving, than making his ninety into two; therefore after many experiments he would divide his ninety into three divisions, placed in the circumference of the circle, or into thirties: each thirty again he would divide into three, and he would find each little division to contain ten calculi, the exact number of his fingers, and the most important number in his arithmetic, and the whole number would equal the days of a supposed solar revolution—three hundred and sixty days. By this time he must have made considerable progress in arithmetic and geometry. He must have learned the four common rules of the former, and how to make a square, a right-angled triangle, a correct circle, and other useful knowledge in these sciences. To all this there is nothing which can be objected, except it be the assumption, that he would reckon the Sun’s period at three hundred and sixty days. But we are justified in assuming this from the well-known fact, that the ancients, even within the reach of history, actually believed the year to consist of only three hundred and sixty days.
