Page:Anacalypsis vol 1.djvu/43

 26. From the circumstances here pointed out, I suppose it to have happened, that the circle became divided into 360 parts or degrees. Philosophers, or perhaps I should say astrologers, now began to exercise all their ingenuity on the circle. They first divided it into two parts of 180 degrees each; then into four of 90 degrees each; then each 90 into three; and they observed that there were in all twelve of these, which afterward had the names of animals and other things given to them, came at length to be called signs of the Zodiac, and to be supposed to exercise great influence on the destinies of mankind. They then divided each of the 12 into three parts, called Decans, and these decans again into two, called Dodecans; then there would be

27. In a way somewhat analogous to this, they would probably proceed with the division of the year. As it consisted of the same number of days as the circle of degrees, they divided it into halves and quarters, then into twelve months, and these months into thirty days each; and as each day answered to one degree of the circle, or to each calculus laid in its circumference, and each degree of the circle was divided into sixty minutes, and each minute into sixty seconds, the day was originally divided in the same manner, as Bailly shews. Of this our sixty minutes and sixty seconds are a remnant.

28. The following, I believe, was the most ancient division of time:

29. About the time this was going on, it would be found that the Moon made thirteen lunations in a year, of twenty-eight days each, instead of twelve only of thirty: from this they would get their Lunar year much nearer the truth than their Solar one. They would have thirteen months of four weeks each. They would also soon discover that the planetary bodies were seven; and after they had become versed in the science of astrology, they allotted one to each of the days of the week; a practice which we know prevailed over the whole of the Old World. A long course of years probably passed after this, before they discovered the great Zodiacal or precessional year of 25,920 years. In agreement with the preceding division, and for other analogical reasons connected with the Solar and Lunar years abovenamed, and with a secret science now beginning to arise, called Astrology, they divided it by sixty, and thus obtained the number 432—the base of the great Indian cycles. When they had arrived at this point they must have been extremely learned, and had probably corrected innumerable early errors, and invented the famous cycles called the Neros, the Saros, the Vans, &c.

30. In another way they obtained the same result. It seems to have been a great object with the ancient astrologers to reduce these periods to the lowest point to which it was possible to reduce them, without having recourse to fractions; and this might perhaps take place before fractions were invented. Thus we find the dodecan, five, was the lowest to which they could come. This, therefore, for several reasons, became a sacred number. In each of the twelve signs of the Zodiac of thirty degrees each, they found there were six of these dodecans of five degrees, and that there were of course 6 × 12 = 72, and 72 × 6 = 432, in the whole circle, forming again the base of their most famous cycle. It was chiefly for these reasons that the two numbers jive and siz became sacred, and the foundations of cycles of a very peculiar kind, and of which I shall have occasion to treat much at large in the course of this work.

31. After man had made some progress, by means of his calculi, in the art of arithmetic, he would begin to wish for an increased means of perpetuating his ideas, or recording them for his own use, or for that of his children. At first, I conceive, he would begin by taking the same course with right lines marked on a stone, or on the inner rind of a tree, which he had adopted with his calculi. He would make a right line for one, two lines for two, and so on until he got five, the limit of one hand. He here made a stop, and marked it by two lines, meeting at the bottom thus, V: after this he began anew for his second series thus, V and I or VI, and so on till he came to VIIII, the end of the