BABYLONIA AND EGYPT 23 



further division of time into hours, minutes, and seconds has 

 followed more arbitrarily, and in connection with the develop- 

 ment of progressively improved methods of time measurement. 



ASTROLOGY AND COSMOLOGY. - - Side by side with the develop- 

 ment of elementary astronomy on its observational and mathemati- 

 cal sides were evolved in intimate connection with it, but sometimes 

 in extraordinary imaginative forms, astrology and cosmology, 

 dealing respectively with the supposed influence of the heavenly 

 bodies on human affairs, and with the structure and organization 

 of the world. Both these pseudo-sciences were inextricably 

 blended, under priestly and literary influences, with a bewildering 

 mass of superstition and mythology, legend and invention. In 

 their earlier stages, both doubtless contributed powerfully to 

 interest and progress in real science. Ultimately both have had 

 to be torn away, as the scaffolding from a cathedral, in the never 

 ending process of releasing truth from error. 



PRIMITIVE COUNTING. - - On the arithmetical side the present 

 counting processes of primitive peoples have particular interest. 

 The distinction between one and two similar objects, and that 

 between two and three or more, belong to a relatively early stage 

 of development, but tribes are known to-day in which the entire 

 number scale is one, two, many (i.e. more than two). The pro- 

 cess of counting is naturally facilitated by the use of fingers and 

 toes as counters, their number 10 being the well-known anatomi- 

 cal basis for our denary or decimal number system. This may be 

 illustrated by the following passages from E. B. Tyler's Primitive 

 Culture : 



Father Gilij, describing the arithmetic of the Tamanacs on the 

 Orinoco, gives their numerals up to 4 ; when they come to 5, they 

 express it by the word amgnaitone, which being translated means ' a 

 whole hand ' ; 6 is expressed by a term which translates the proper 

 gesture into words itacono amgnapona temnitpe, 'one of the other 

 hand,' and so on up to 9. Coming to 10, they give it in words as 

 amgna aceponare, 'both hands.' To denote 11 they stretch out 

 both the hands, and adding the foot they say puitta-pona tevinitpe, 

 'one to the foot/ and so on up to 15, which is iptaitone, 'a whole 



