156 The Rev. E. Hincks on the Years and Cycles 



months must have been adopted at a time, when the seasons of the actual year, 

 of whatever sort that may have been, coincided with the seasons represented by 

 their names. This is a proposition, which cannot, I think, be questioned ; and 

 it furnishes us with a criterion, by which we may at once reject many suppositions 

 respecting the origin of the wandering year as impossible. The only hypotheses 

 which will stand this test, besides that which I have stated above, are the follow- 

 ing : — 1. That the year of 365 days succeeded a year of 360 days at the chro- 

 nological epoch of the eighteenth century, the hieroglyphical notation of the 

 months being then first used ; 2. That at this chronological epoch the hierogly- 

 phical notation of the months was introduced ; the year of 365 days having been 

 previously in use, but the months having been otherwise noted ; 3. That the 

 hieroglyphical notation was first used for a year of 360 days ; 4. That the year 

 of 365 days, with its hieroglyphical notation, was introduced at a chronological 

 epoch similar to that of the eighteenth century before our era, but occurring in 

 the thirty-third century before it. In deciding which of these several suppositions 

 is the correct one, we have to consider their intrinsic probabilities, and also the 

 testimony of ancient authors, so far as this has been given in favor of, or in oppo- 

 sition to, any ; and it will be well for me to state, in the first instance, that the 

 argument that I am about to use is a disjunctive syllogism. I hope to be able to 

 show, that all the suppositions, which I have above enumerated as possible, in 

 reference to the criterion first laid down, except only that which I have stated to 

 be my own, are either highly improbable — I may even say absurd, or are alto- 

 gether opposed to the testimony of antiquity. On the other hand, I maintain 

 that my own hypothesis is both intrinsically probable, and conformable to the 

 testimony of such ancient authors as have alluded to the subject. 



1. The first of the four hypotheses, which compete with my own, must, I 

 conceive, be rejected on account of the extreme improbability that the Egyptians 

 should have continued to use a year of 360 days so late as the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century before our era. A great number of centuries must then have 

 elapsed since the peopling of Egypt, even according to the lowest biblical chro- 

 nology ; the Inhabitants must have had considerable Intercourse with neighbour^ 

 ing countries ; and we know that they had attained to no small degree of 

 civilization. Can we then suppose with any reason, that, up to this late period, 

 they should know no better than to measure their time by a year of 360 days ; — 



