DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15#0253
240 TUM ORIGIN Of THE WEEK.
dantly clear that quite early in the progress of
astronomy, the more scientific and observant must
have recognised the unfitness of the week as an
astronomical measure of time. With the disap-
pearance of the week from astronomical systems
(the lunar ' quarters ' being retained, however) the
week may be considered to have become what it
now is for ourselves, a civil and in some sense a
religious time-measure. That it should retain its
position in this character was to be expected, if we
consider the firm hold which civil measures once
established obtain among the generality of men,
and the still greater constancy with which men
retain religious observances. A struggle probably
took place between astronomers and the priest-
hood when first the solar zodiac came into use
instead of the lunar stations, and when an effort
was made to get rid of the week as a measure of
time. This seems to me to be indicated by many
passages in certain more or less mythological
records of the race through whom (directly) the
week has descended to us. But this part of the
subject introduces questions which cannot be satis-
factorily dealt with without a profound study of
those records in their mythological sense, and a
thorough investigation of philological relations in-
volved in the subject. Such researches, accom-1
dantly clear that quite early in the progress of
astronomy, the more scientific and observant must
have recognised the unfitness of the week as an
astronomical measure of time. With the disap-
pearance of the week from astronomical systems
(the lunar ' quarters ' being retained, however) the
week may be considered to have become what it
now is for ourselves, a civil and in some sense a
religious time-measure. That it should retain its
position in this character was to be expected, if we
consider the firm hold which civil measures once
established obtain among the generality of men,
and the still greater constancy with which men
retain religious observances. A struggle probably
took place between astronomers and the priest-
hood when first the solar zodiac came into use
instead of the lunar stations, and when an effort
was made to get rid of the week as a measure of
time. This seems to me to be indicated by many
passages in certain more or less mythological
records of the race through whom (directly) the
week has descended to us. But this part of the
subject introduces questions which cannot be satis-
factorily dealt with without a profound study of
those records in their mythological sense, and a
thorough investigation of philological relations in-
volved in the subject. Such researches, accom-1