May 1, 1SS6.] 



♦ KNO\A^LEDGE ♦ 



20c 



of twenty -four liours, and we want the hours assigned in 

 succession to the seven phxnets taken in some suitable order, 

 and eacli of the seven days assigned, by its tirst liour, to a 

 different planet. But so soon as we have selected a suitable 

 order for the planets — that, namely, indicated above — the 

 problem practically solves itself, as the following taVile 

 shows : — 



Here I have simply counted the hours in order — seven by 

 seven — after the order of the planets, and also 24 by 24. 

 The first day is sacred to Saturn (our Saturday), and its 

 first, eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-second hours are also 

 sacred to the gloomy and malign god. The first known 

 of the second set of twenty-four is sacred to the sun, to 

 whom therefore the next day (or Sunday) is sacred. So, fol- 

 lowing out the series of hours, we find the third day sacred 

 to the moon, giving Monday ; the fourth to Mars, giving 

 Martis dies, or Mardi (with us Tuisco's day, or Tuesday, 

 Tuisco being the Scandinavian Mars) ; the fifth day to 

 Mercuiy, giving Mercurts dies, or Mercredi (our Woden's 

 day, or Wednesday) ; the sixth day to Jupiter, giving 

 Jovis dies, or Jeudi (our Thor's da}', or Thursday) ; and 

 finally, the seventh da}' to Venus, Veneris dies, or Vendredi 

 (our Freya's day, or Friday). 



Of course, among races who had long worshipped the sun 

 and moon, Sunday and Monday would be taken as the first 

 two days of the week (probably a method of distributing 

 the days and liours which brought these two days together 

 would be regarded as a heaven-.sont revelation). And it 

 would seem veiy natural to regard the day which fell to the 

 gloomy and slow-moving Saturn as suitably coming last, 

 and a proper time to rest after the week's work, especially 

 as any work on the day ruled by so malignant a heavenly 

 body would naturally be deemed unfortunate if not wicked 

 — probably unfortunate first, wicked in later days. Hence 

 among the ancient J-iabj-lonians, Egyptians, and other races 

 of the more civilised sort, arose the S^iturday rest or Sabbath, 

 which certainly was enjoined in CbakLTa, Assyria, and 

 Egypt, centuries before the less civilised and less intelligent 

 Hebrew race became acquainted with the institution. 



The Jewish system of sacrifices and ceremonial in regard 

 to the Sabbath and the new moon, may be considered to 

 indicate the nature of the original Sab»an sy.stem, notwith- 

 standing the obvious attempt made by the Jewish legislators 

 to get rid of the worship of the heavenly host, even while 

 retaining its ceremonial and many of its most peculiar 

 forms and ideas. 



{To he continued.) 



HuNTiSG AS Spoet. — Few human characteristics .speak more 

 clear!}' of our descent from savage and brutal ancestors than the 

 habit of regarding the pursuit of animals as sport. Of course the 

 pursuit of animals for food may be regarded as legitimate, and the 

 pursuit of destructive animals for the purpose of destroj ing them 

 and removing a source of danger is also legitimate; but to regard 

 even these methods of slaying our fellow-creatures as sport is 

 degrading and barbarous. It would be in like sort degrading if men 

 who make researches by the method of vivisection were to take 

 actual pleasure in the operations by which their " subjects " were 

 tortured. Regarding vivisection properly conducted as legitimate, we 

 yet expect the vivisectionist to diminish as much as possible the suf- 

 feringsof the creatures on which he has to experiment. If he gloated 

 over such sufferings, we should despise him as a brutal savage. 

 But we cannot logically avoid the same decision in regard to the man 

 who recognises sport in tlie chase and slaughter of wild animals. 



THE STORY OF CREATION. 



A PLAIN ACCOUNT OF EVOLUTION, 



Bv Edward Clodd. 

 VII.— PRESENT LIFE-FORMS. 

 F the life-forms of the past somewhat baflle us by 

 their scantiness and imperfectness, those of the 

 present embarrass us by their abundance. 

 But although the existing species of plants and 

 animals are numbered by hundreds of thou- 

 sands, and the tale is not yet complete, they 

 are classified into a few primary divisions or 

 sub-kingdoms repie.senting certain allied types, of which the 

 several species included in each sub-kingdom are modified 

 forms. For example, flies and lobsters, beetles and crabs, are 

 grouped in the sub-kingdom of the Annulosa, because they 

 are alike composed of distinct segments ; boys and frogs, pigs 

 and herrings, are grouped in the sub-kingdom of the 

 Vertebrata, because they alike possess an internal bony 

 skeleton, the most important feature of which is the spine 

 or vertebral column. And this classification, as remarked 

 already, is applicable alike to past and present organisms, 

 there being throughout the whole series of fo.ssil remains no 

 form, however unlike any existing living thing, that is not 

 to be placed in one or other of the sub-kingdoms. 



Moreover, a fundamental unity underlies and pervades 

 the whole, a unity of material, of form, and of function, the 

 differences between organisms, from the slime of a stagnant 

 ditch to the most complex animal, being in degree and not 

 in kind. Therefore, although each genus, nay, in most 

 cases, each species, needs for its complete study the labour of 

 a life-time, it suflices for the majority of us, grateful for the 

 results which the zeal of specialists has achieved, to acquaint 

 ourselves with the essential characteristics which mark the 

 main divisions of the twin sciences of Botany and Zoology. 

 Not only is this the only possible thing for us ; it is the one 

 thing needful for all, specialists and non-specialists, other- 

 wise the significance of facts, in their relation and dependence, 

 is missed; the larger generalisations are swamped in a sea of 

 detail ; we cannot, as the phrase goes, see the wood for the trees. 

 In the old definition of the three kingdoms of nature, the 

 mineral, the vegetable, and the animal, we were taught that 

 plants grow and live, while animals grow, live, and move. 

 But this no longer holds good, at least in respect of the 

 lower forms. There are locomotive plants and stationary 

 animals. The swarm-cells or zoospores which are expelled 

 from some of the lower plants, as algse and certain fungi, 

 behave like animals, darting through the water by the aid 

 of hair-like filaments called vibratile cilia, finally settling 

 down and growing into new plants ; others, as diatoms and 

 desmids, are locomotive throughout life ; certain marine ani- 

 mals, as sponges and corals, are rooted to the spot where they 

 grow ; while there are organisms which appear to be plants 

 at one stage of their growth, and animals at another stage. 



Other marks of supposed unlikene-ss have vanished. It 

 was formerly held that among the distinctive features of 

 animals are (1) a sac or cavity in which to receive and digest 

 food ; (2) the power to absorb oxygen and exhale carbonic 

 acid ; and (3) a nervous system. But although nearly all 

 animals, in virtue of their food being solid, have a mouth 

 and an alimentary cavity, there are certain forms without 

 them, and although plants, in virtue of their food being 

 liquid or gaseous, need not that cavity, there are plants 

 that have it. Not only is tlie process of digestion apparent 

 in the leaves of carnivorous plants, but embryonic forms 

 have been found to secrete a ferment similar to the ferment 

 in the pancreatic secretion of animals, and by which they 

 dis.solve and utilise the food-stores in their seed-lobes as 

 completely as food is chgested in our stomachs. And 



