§ 6. With this group of Solar figures of the Hebrew mythology which are exhibited as _wandering_ or _rapidly marching forward_,[342] I also class some others whose names alone lead us to recognise this mythological character. First and foremost we must consider a word which has been retained in the language beyond the mythical stage: the Hebrew shachar, Arabic saḥar, ‘morning, dawn.’ This word is doubtless connected with the verb sâchar, which denotes constant moving, wandering.[343] The Arabic sâḥir ‘magician’ is the same word as the Hebrew sôchêr ‘merchant,’ both signifying originally those who are always travelling about from place to place. The Hebrew verb shachêr ‘to seek’ relates originally to the _movement_ of one who has lost something and goes about looking for it. Although in the course of this chapter I shall devote a special connected disquisition to Jacob’s sons, yet I must here pick out a few beforehand to incorporate them in the class of solar figures whose characteristic feature is that here discussed. To this class belongs e.g. Âshêr, the name of a son of Jacob by his concubine Zilpah. The name cannot be explained (according to Gen. XXX. 13) as the ‘Happy,’ or ‘Bringer of Happiness,’ since this signification of the root (‘to be happy’) is only secondary to the fundamental meaning—applied, not original. Language does not form originally expressions for ethical notions of this kind, any more than the notion itself rises without contact with something sensual, which may subsequently be transferred to the ethical. The Arabic words for similar ideas spring up in a similar way, e.g. muṣliḥ ‘successful’ denotes properly ‘one who _penetrates_ through something,’ &c. The root of Âshêr, in Hebrew âshar, in Arabic athara (whence athar ‘a trace’), originally denoted _to march, go forwards_ (Prov. IX. 6); intensively ashshêr, _to make_ some one _go forward, to lead_, and as a noun, ashûr ‘way, path.’ From the same root comes also the relative pronoun asher, which originally signified _place_, (compare the Aramaic athar ‘place’); but we know that expressions which serve as exponents of the category of _relation_, both in time and space, generally start from the conception of space, as is clearly seen in the Hebrew shâm, indicating originally the idea of place, ‘there’ but also transferred to the expression of the idea of time, ‘then.’[344] We see the same quite as clearly in the employment of the Aramaic athar in the combination bâthar (from ba-athar) to denote _after, afterwards_, properly _on the spot_.[345]