Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/403

Rh no such obvious suggestion as ten, and no such recommendation of practical convenience as twelve; nevertheless, it is quite as truly a favorite number as either; perhaps, in some sense, it is more so. Its early occurrence in the book of Genesis might be adopted at once as an explanation of its prominence among numbers; this course of treatment, however, would not fall in with the intentions of this essay, and I shall therefore, in the first place, treat the subject in the most general manner possible, putting out of mind for the moment all thought of the references to the institution of the week which can be found in the Bible.

Adopting this course, we have to deal with the fact that the division of days by seven is both ancient and widespread. If, as has been held by good authorities, the method be of Chaldean origin, the notion that the number seven is connected with the heavenly bodies at once presents itself to our minds as probable; in fact, when we remember that to the early observers of the heavens the planets were seven in number—namely, the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn—and that the names of these planets were in divers countries connected with the several days of the week, the conclusion that the measuring of days by sevens took its rise from the physical fact that seven planetary bodies are visible to the naked eye must seem to be almost irresistible.

The reader may be referred upon this subject to a lucid article, s.v."Week," in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible." The writer says:

Whether the week gave its sacredness to the number seven, or whether the ascendency of that number helped to determine the dimensions of the week, it is impossible to say. The latter fact—the ancient ascendency of the number seven—might rest upon divers grounds. The planets, according to the astronomy of those times, were seven in number; so are the notes of the diatonic scale; 80 also many other things naturally attracting observation.

And again:

So far, then, the week being a division of time without ground in Nature, there was much to recommend its adoption. When the days were named from planetary deities, as among first the Assyrians and Chaldees, and then the Egyptians, then, of course, each period of seven days would constitute a whole, and that whole might come to be recognized by nations that disregarded or rejected the practice which had shaped and determined it. But, further, the week is a most natural and nearly exact quadri-partition of the month, so that the quarters of the moon may easily have suggested it.

The argument contained in these passages is somewhat weakened by the mixture of other considerations with those of an astronomical origin. The reference to the diatonic scale, for example, appears to be anything but a help—the more so, as the diatonic scale was unknown to the ancient people of the world, and is unrecognized in the East at the present time. Still more injurious is the indefinite reference to "many other things naturally attracting observation." The connection of the