ITS EARLIEST STAGES. 151 



place, was temperate ; Mars, fiery, and the 

 like 34 . 



It is not necessary to dwell on the details of 

 these speculations, but we may notice a very re- 

 markable evidence of their antiquity and generality 

 in the structure of one of the most familiar of our 

 measures of time, the Week. This distribution 

 of time according to periods of seven days, comes 

 down to us, as we learn from the Jewish scrip- 

 tures, from the beginning of man's existence on 

 the earth. The same usage is found over all the 

 East; it existed among the Arabians, Assyrians, 

 Egyptians 35 . 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 de- 

 signation 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 



34 Achilles Tatius (Uranol. pp. 135, 136,) gives the Grecian 

 and Egyptian names of the planets. 



Egyptian. Greek. 



Saturn . . Ne/xeo-e'to? K.povov dffTtjp <paivu>v 



Jupiter . . 'Oo-jpjSo? A?o? <paf0tov 



Mars . . 'HpaK\fov<! irvpoei*: 



Venus . . A<j)po2>iTrjs e<a<r<popo<; 



Mercury . 'AiroAAwi/o? 'Ep/^ov 

 K Laplace, Hist. Astron. p. 16. 



