152 THE GREEK ASTRONOMY. 



them in the order of their remoteness from the 

 earth 36 ; 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, we must 

 consider 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 ac- 

 counts are given of the manner in which one of 

 these orders is obtained from the other; all the 

 methods proceeding upon certain arbitrary arith- 

 metical processes, connected in some way with 

 astrological views. It is perhaps 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 produced this result ; and we 

 may probably consider the Week, with Laplace 37 , 

 as "the most ancient monument of astronomical 

 knowledge." This period has gone on without in- 

 terruption 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 

 36 Philol Mus. No. 1. 37 Hist. Ast. p. 17. 



