We are now on the track of the right solution, though there is still apparently hopeless discord between this order and that of the days of the week. The true solution is such an artificial one, that we should never have discovered it if it had not been disclosed to us by the clay tablets exhumed from ancient royal libraries in the temples and palaces of Chaldæa. These tablets are extremely ancient, going back in many cases to the times of the old Accadians who inhabited Chaldæa prior to the advent of the Semites. Some of them, in fact, are from the royal library of Sargon I., of Accade, whose date is fixed by the best authorities at about 3800 B.C. These Accadians were a civilized and literary people, well versed in astronomy, but extremely superstitious, and addicted beyond measure to astrology. Every city had its ziggurat, or observatory-tower, attached to its temple, from which priests watched the heavens and calculated times and seasons. To some of those ancient priests it occurred that the planets must be gods watching over and influencing human events, and that, as Mars was ruddy, he was probably the god of war; Venus, the lovely evening star, the goddess of love; Jupiter, powerful; Saturn, slow and malignant; and Mercury, quick and nimble. By degrees the idea expanded, and it was thought that each planet exerted its peculiar influence, not only on the days of the week, but on the hours of the day; and the planet which presided over the first hour of the day was thought to preside over the whole of that day. But the day had been already divided into twenty-four hours, because the earliest Chaldæans had adopted the duodecimal scale, and counted by sixes, twelves, and sixties. Now, twenty-four is not divisible by seven, and, therefore, the same planets do not recur in the same order, to preside over the same hours of successive days. If Saturn ruled the first hour, he would rule the twenty-second hour; and, if we refer to the above list of the planets, ranged according to the magnitude of their orbits, we shall find that the Sun would rule the first hour of the succeeding day, and then in succession the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, and Venus, round to Saturn again, in the precise order of our days of the week. This order is so artificial that it cannot have been invented separately, and wherever we find it we may feel certain that it has descended from the astrological fancies of Accadian priestly astronomers at least 6000 years ago.