128 THE GREEK ASTRONOMY. 



Egyptian.-. The same -week is found in India among the Bramins ; 

 it has there, also, its days marked by those of the heavenly bodies ; 

 and it has been ascertained that the same day has, in that country, 

 the name corresponding with its designation in other nations. 



The notion which led to the usual designations of the days of the 

 week is not easily unravelled. The days each correspond to one of 

 the heavenly bodies, which were, in the earliest systems of the world, 

 conceived to be the following, enumerating them in the order of their 

 remoteness from the earth : 35 Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, 

 Mercury, the Moon. At a later period, the received systems placed 

 the seven luminaries in the seven spheres. The knowledge which was 

 implied in this view, and the time when it was obtained, \?e must con- 

 sider hereafter. The order in which the names are assigned to the 

 days of the week (beginning with Saturday) is, Saturn, the Sun, the 

 Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus ; and various accounts are given 

 of the manner in which one of these orders is obtained from the 

 other ; all the methods proceeding upon certain arbitrary arithmetical 

 processes, connected in some way with astrological views. It is per- 

 haps not worth our while here to examine further the steps of this 

 process ; it would be difficult to determine with certainty why the 

 former order of the planets was adopted, and how and why the latter 

 was deduced from it. But there is something very remarkable in the 

 universality of the notions, apparently so fantastic, which have pro- 

 duced this result ; and Ave may jjrobably consider the Week, with 

 Laplace, 37 as " the most ancient monument of astronomical knowl- 

 edge." This period has gone on without interruption or irregularity 

 from the earliest recorded times to our own days, traversing the extent 

 of ages and the revolutions of empires; the names of the ancient 

 deities which were associated with the stars have been replaced by 

 those of the objects of the worship of our Teutonic ancestors, accord- 

 ing to their views of the correspondence of the two mythologies; and 

 the Quakers, in rejecting these names of days, have cast aside the 

 most ancient existing relic of astrological as well as idolatrous super- 

 stition. 



Sec. 8. — The Circles of the Sphere. 



The inventions hitherto noticed, though undoubtedly they were steps 

 in astronomical knowledge, can hardly be considered as purely abstract 

 and scientific speculations ; for the exact reckoning of time is one of 



» Laplace, Hid. Astron. p. 16. se PUM. Mus. No. 1. 37 Hist. Ast. p. 17. 



