ITS EARLIEST STAGES. 127 



likely to be known to any nation except those 

 which have advanced far beyond that which may 

 be considered as the earliest scientific process which 

 we can trace in the history of the human race, 

 the formation of a method of designating the suc- 

 cessive numbers to an indefinite extent, by means 

 of names, framed according to the decimal, quinary, 

 or vigenary scale. 



But even if we suppose men to have the habit 

 of recording the passage of each day, and of count- 

 ing the score thus recorded, it would be by no 

 means easy for them to determine the exact num- 

 ber of days in which the cycle of the seasons 

 recurs; for the indefiniteness of the appearances 

 which mark the same season of the year, arid the 

 changes to which they are subject as the seasons 

 are early or late, would leave much uncertainty 

 respecting the duration of the year. They would 

 not obtain any accuracy on this head, till they had 

 attended for a considerable time to the motions 

 and places of the sun ; circumstances which require 

 more precision of notice than the general facts of 

 the degrees of heat and light. The motions of the 

 sun, the succession of the places of his rising and 

 setting at different times of the year, the greatest 

 heights which he reaches, the proportion of the 

 length of day and night, would all exhibit several 

 cycles. The turning back of the sun, when he had 

 reached his greatest distance to the south or to 

 the north, as shown either by his rising or by his 



