291: 



ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



people in India appears to be more accurate and minute than it was 

 even in Egypt. 



Another fmgulanty, in which the two nations agreed, is the ve- 

 neration of the Cow, which is univerfal all over India. Of this 

 Mr Holwell has treated very fully, in his book upon India* ; and 

 has given fome very good reafons, why the Indians fhould have fuch 

 a refped for that animal. How much the Cow was reverenced in 

 Egypt, is very well known ; but in no other country, antient or 

 modern, except Egypt and India, there neither is, nor ever was, 

 any extraordinary refpedt paid to that animal. So here is another 

 fmgularity in which the two nations agree, but differ from every 

 other nation antient or modern. 



A third thing in which the two nations agree, is a matter of great 



confequence in the civilifed life — the divifion of time into years and 



months. In India the divifion, into years and months, is the fame 



as with us; and which, as I have fhownf, came originally from E- 



gypt to the Romans, and from them to us. But there is a third 



divifion of time, not fo neceffary as the two I have mentioned, but 



wiiich is obfeived in India at this day ; I mean the divifion into 



weeks. This, too, came originally from Eg^'pt, but was not known, 



till later times, to the Greeks and Romans, as Dion Caffius informs 



us ; and what is moft remarkable is, that the feveral days of the 



week are confecrated to the fame planets, and in the fame order as 



it was among the Egyptians, and is among us ; for that it was fo 



among the Egyptians, we cannot doubt, as Herodotus tells us, that 



among them every day was confecrated to forae God. In India, 



therefore, the firft day of the week is dedicated to the Sun — the 



fecond to the Moon — the third ro Mars — the fourth to Mercury — 



the fifth to Jupiter — the fixth to Venus — and the fcventh to Saturn, 



juft 

 * Page 73. 

 ^ Page 147. of this vol. 



