52 The Week 



may have emigrated from, or only had communication with,, 

 the Aryan patriarchs, after the division of the year into 

 months of the length of the sidereal lunar revolution, the 

 division of which by four gives the ordinary weekly cycle* 

 For although it is generally stated, mainly I believe on the 

 authority of Freret* in the last century, that the Chinese 

 have a cycle of ten days instead of seven, and though 

 Laplace ascribes to them a cycle of 60 days, as well as 60 

 years, still on referring to Sir John Davis' work (an unim- 

 peachable authority I believe) on the Chinese, I find (vol. ii. 

 p. 73) that he, after admitting points of resemblance between 

 the astronomical systems of India and China, indirectly 

 shows that the Chinese have at least an equivalent of a 

 septenary cycle. He says "the Chinese reckon five planets, 

 to the exclusion of the sun and moon, but they give the 

 names of one of their twenty-eight lunar mansions" (into 

 which their Zodiac is divided) "successively to each day of the 

 year in a perpetual rotation, without regard to the moon's 

 changes ; so that the same four out of the twenty-eight 

 invariably fall on our Sundays, and constitute as it were, 

 perpetual Sunday letters. A native Chinese first remarked 

 this odd fact to the author, and on examination it proved 

 perfectly correct." This coincidence appears to me to arise 

 from the simple fact that their cycle is a multiple, and 

 therefore a full equivalent of ours ; and as they make na 

 intercalations of less than a full month of 28 days, the 

 coincidence is perpetual. Though the Chinese thus have 

 not a perfect septenary cycle, still their system without 

 doubt, regarding other coincidences, originated — though at 

 a very distant date — from the same source as ours, with 

 which it synchronises so well. Laplace says the seven 

 day week was known to them from the most remote 

 periods. Their monthly cycle, and their sixty year cycle, 

 are probably as old as their era, or 45 centuries, if not 

 as old as Fo Hi, or 52 centuries past.f There is certainly no 

 geographical or chronological improbability in the derivation 

 of the Chinese calendar from the locality indicated, and 

 I think that the division of the 28 days cycle — based doubtless 

 on the sidereal lunar period in preference to the synodical 

 period — is strongly suggestive of a common origin with the 

 seven day week, after the more accurate determination of 

 the moon's revolution. 



* See Encyclopedia Britannica, art. Chronology. 



f See Meadows' The Chinese and their Rebellions, p. 329. 



