2 THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



the wisdom and practical knowledge of Thebes and 

 Memphis, Nineveh and Babylon, are more readily 

 comprehended by our minds than the difficult spec- 

 ulations of Athenian philosophy. 



Much that we have inherited from the earliest 

 civilizations is so familiar, so homely, that we simply 

 accept it, much as we may light, or air, or water, 

 without analysis, without inquiry as to its origin, 

 and without full recognition of how indispensable it 

 is. Why are there seven days in the week, and not 

 eight? Why are there sixty minutes in the hour, and 

 why are there not sixty hours in the day? These 

 artificial divisions of time are accepted so unquestion- 

 ingly that to ask a reason for them may, to an indolent 

 mind, seem almost absurd. This acceptance of a week 

 of seven days and of an hour of sixty minutes (almost 

 as if they were natural divisions of time like day and 

 night) is owing to a tradition that is Babylonian in 

 its origin. From the Old Testament (which is one 

 of the greatest factors in preserving the continuity 

 of human culture, and the only ancient book which 

 speaks with authority concerning Babylonian history) 

 we learn that Abraham, the progenitor of the He- 

 brews, migrated to the west from southern Babylonia 

 about twenty-three hundred years before Christ. 

 Even in that remote age, however, the Babylonians 

 had established those divisions of time which are 

 familiar to us. The seven days of the week were 

 closely associated in men's thinking with the heav- 

 enly bodies. In our modern languages they are named 

 after the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, 

 Venus, and Saturn, which from the remotest times 

 were personified and worshiped. Thus we see that 



