outer objects which one wishes to subdue to one’s will. Another and more {293} thrilling example of blood-magic is the process of water-finding by pouring human blood about the earth, a method revealed by an old legend of Haliartos in Boeotia about the man who desired water, and in order to find it consulted Delphi, and was recommended by the oracle to slay the first person who met him on his return; his own young son met him first, and the father stabbed him with his sword; the wounded youth ran round about, and wherever the blood dripped water sprang up from the earth.[293.1] No one will now venture to say that all these things are post-Homeric; the natural view is that they were an inheritance of crude and primitive thought indigenous to the land. Many of them belong to world-wide custom; on the other hand, some of the striking and specialised rites, such as the blood-magic and the ritual of the φαρμακός, are not found at Babylon. But before prejudging the question, some salient and peculiar developments of Babylonian magic ought to be considered. One great achievement of Mesopotamian civilisation was the early development of astrology, to which perhaps the whole world has been indebted for good and for evil, and which was associated with magic and put to magic uses. Astrological observation led to the attachment of a magic value to numbers and to certain special numbers, such as number seven. Whether the Judaic name and institution of the Sabbath is of Babylonian origin or not, does not concern our question. But it concerns us to know that the seventh days, the 14th, the 21st, and 28th of certain months, if not of all, were sacred at Babylon, and were days of penance and piacular duties when ordinary occupation was suspended.[293.2] We can discern the origin of the sanctity of this number: the observation of the {294} seven planets, and the division of the lunar month into four quarters of seven days. The early Greeks, doubtless, had their astrological superstitions, as most races have had; the new moon is naturally lucky, the waning moon unlucky; but no one can discover any numerical or other principle in the Hesiodic system, which is our earliest evidence of Hellenic lucky and unlucky days. His scheme is presented in naïve confusion, and he concludes humorously, “one man praises one day, one another, and few know anything about it.”[294.1] His page of verse reflects the anarchy of the Greek calendars; and we should find it hard to credit that either Hesiod or the legislators that drew up those had sat attentively at the feet of Babylonian teachers. But a few coincidences may be noted. Hesiod puts a special tabu on the fifth day of the month; in fact, it is the only one in his list that is wholly unlucky, a day when it would seem to be best to do nothing at all, at least outside the house, for on this day the Erinyes are wandering about.[294.2] Now, a Babylonian text published by Dr. Langdon contains the dogma that on