traces the origin of all mankind to one pair, from the notions of duality.' In fact, to attempt to account for the very geneml custom of a septimand measure of time by any such fanciful hypothesis seems nothing better than an example of Vcrrepw, rpOrEpop; especially when we reflect that the divi sion in question has been found among the rudest as well as the most cultivated of the nations of antiquity.
It is a little more plausible (but still only plausible) to attribute this very general concurrence of the nations in the weekly division of time, to observa tion of the lunar phases, and so to represent it as nothing more than an instance of a natural division of tiine. This is still, in our judgment, to anticipate the course of human development. It is to sup pose the accurate observation of the lunar pheno mena, and reasoning upon them, much more early and general than we have any reason to believe they were ; and what is more, it is to make the nations (singularly enough) generally concur in taking precisely the same subdivision of the entire cycle of lunar changes, when they might with just as much likelihood have taken another, as in fact some nations seem to have done.* That the distinction is not (as is sometimes con tended) so obvious and convenient that it could not well be missed, is sufficiently apparent from the very exceptions, which are also much insisted on when the object is to show that it was not univer sal 1 If this division of time was not only not used, but not even known (which however requires proof), by the acute Greeks and the practical Ro mans, it does not seem very conclusive to argue from its obviousness.
Such a general concurrence, if the effect of ob servation, would be the more marvellous, that it would imply approximate unanimity in error, where several errors were equally possible. A week is not an exact aliquot part of the month any more than nine days or ten. It would be in fact a gene ral concurrence in a similar, but rather refined, error, while other errors were just as likely to be adopted. If one of these divisions were the abso lute truth, and also obvious, and that had been generally adopted, we should have had more plaus ible ground for acquiescing in this solution.
The general adoption, therefore, of the septi mand period seems more probably due to the diffusion of some primitive tradition, such as is conveyed in the narrative of Genesis. So obvious is the probability of this conclusion, that it may be surmised that the reason for rejecting it, and resort ing to such farfetched explanations, originated in st:ong prejudices against the cosmogony of the first chapter of Genesis, the rejection of which necessi tates, of course, the rejection of this particular frag ment of the history ; else the supposition of a widely-spread immemorial tradition—consecrating, to some extent, the seventh day—would certainly seem the most natural way of accounting for the very general concurrence in this arbitrary division of time by weekly periods.
The theory of M. Proudhon on this point (see his De la Celebration du Dimanche, to which we shall return by and by) is peculiar. Puzzled to account for the hebdomadal division of time, which he believes originally based on that particular ratio of labour ' to rest' which is better adapted to the average human constitution and the collective ne cessities of human life than any other, yet unable to attribute the primitive decision on the subject to the deductions of any science known to us, he supposes it without doubt ' the result of a certain 'spontaneous genius, a sort of magnetic vision which discovered primitive arts, developed language, invented writing, created systcms of religion and philosophy ;—a marvellous faculty, the operations of which elude analysis, and which reflection, a and progressive faculty, gradually enfeebled without ever so far prevailing as wholly to obliterate it (p. viii.) It is certainly curious to find philosophers
arguing at once that human nature was cradled in the rudest savagely,: and gradually groped its way from uttermost degradation to the lowest elements of civilisation, and yet gratuitously investing man in that primitive state with the power of vaulting to the most wonderful achievements of science and deciding the most difficult social problems ; invent ing the arts of speech and writing, and determining the precise ratio in which the social system requires our life to be divided between labour and rest ;' and all in virtue of a transcendental instinct, which there is not the slightest reason to suppose human nature ever possessed, and least of all in such a con dition as they suppose its aboriginal state Is it more easy to believe all this than to admit that there is truth in the history of Genesis ; that man did not absolutely begin on all fours ; or that he derived some glimmer of light—the rudiments at least of the arts necessary to make life tolerable—from divine revelation ? Certainly, if he possessed the transcendental instinct ascribed to him by M. Proudhon, it is hard to see how it differs from direct inspiration. It seems, however, that there is one thing which staggers M. Proudhon still more than even the notion that the hebdomadal division of time, and the purpose to which it was applied, should have been imparted by revelation ; and that is, that Moses should have stumbled on this institution by chance or guess. He therefore con jectures that though L'origine de la semaine est inconnue,' yet it is possible that Moses, rich in all the knowledge of the Egyptians, might have had resources in a science to which Paris has not at tained,—' une science des sciences, 5. une har moniqut transcena'ante, s'il m'est permis de lui dormer un nom, . . . La certitude de cette science est demontree par le fait meme dont nous nous oc cupons.' He indulges in some mystical attempts to illustrate this 'science of sciences' by reference to certain numerical analogies, which do not seem to satisfy himself, and can still less satisfy anybody else ; but anyhow his rejection of all chance-work shows the abundant faith 3f a sceptic ; for he de clares that sooner than believe that chance alone so favoured Moses, he would believe that some special revelation had been made to him (p. 67), or accept the fable that a sow wrote the Iliad with its snout.' We have conceded that it is net necessary to infer more from the reference to the Sabbatic institution in Gen. ii., than that the author, compiling the book after the institution of the Sabbath was known and established, took the opportunity en passant of paranthetically noting the occasion ; still it is not unnatural to suppose a peculiar emphasis attached to the word hallowed ;' that from the earliest times of primitive tradition the notion of a certain sacredness was attached to the seventh day ; and if so, it is at least highly probable that it was also generally marked by some religious observ ances, even though not formally enforced, or made universally obligatory upon mankind. It is im possible to deny that the words, And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed' (separated) 'it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made,' would naturally lead the great majority of readers to such a conclu sion, even though they do not necessitate it ; and, if fairly explicable in another way, it cannot be denied that this has been the prevailing opinion.