The Week 5 J 



tli at the Samaritan Pentateuch commences with the words, 

 "In the beginning the Goat (Azima) created the heaven 

 and the earth,"* which is neither absurd nor unintelligible 

 if read — " When the Zodiacal signs were first distributed, 

 Capricornus held the dominant position indicated by 

 Laplace." These are merely coincidences with Dupuis' great 

 work, which I remarked on reading Laplace's statement. 

 Laplace had doubtless far more substantial reasons for his 

 opinion. It is, perhaps, right to mention that Laplace 

 respectfully differs from Bailly as to the antiquity of 

 astronomy ; but with all deference to his weighty authority, 

 I cannot but think that the philological evidence discovered 

 since his time, more than outweighs his objections. 



The suicidal esoteric system seems to have subsisted in 

 this primeval civilisation in the most exclusive form, and to 

 have effectually prevented the spread and survival of more 

 than mere fragments of the knowledge upon which it was 

 based. But I believe that ethnology and philology both 

 point to the same approximate site for the original home of 

 the Aryan family and speech. The patriarchs of the 

 Brahmin race seem to have been those who survived the 

 collapse of their ancestors' civilisation, and are admitted to 

 have brought with them to India (but how long afterwards 

 must be mere matter of conjecture), amongst the relics of 

 their former state, the Sanscrit language, the weekly cycle, 

 and a half-understood or forgotten astronomy; together with 

 the most radical distinctions of classes known. 



I think it reasonable to suppose, that if the Brahmins 

 exhibit signs of the most direct derivation from the primeval 

 civilised race, they were probably the immediate survivors 

 of the social convulsion, which is supposed to have almost 

 annihilated the antecedent civilisation. The customs (and 

 among them notably the week) which appear to be due to 

 the same source, and which still survive among the de- 

 scendants of the Kelts and Scandinavians, I should judge to 

 have spread westward long before the extinction of the 

 civilisation which gave them birth. Those which survive in 

 China were probably received thence at even an earlier date. 

 The Chinese appear to me to exhibit the rudiments rather 

 than the debris of an astronomical science, and never to have 

 advanced beyond them, though they have always made and 

 recorded observations. The authors of the Chinese calendar 



* lb. vol. v. p. 67. 



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