An equal irregularity exists in the respective quantities of degrees allotted by the Ægyptians to the several terms of the planets. For it is by no means a proper nor sufficient demonstration of accuracy that the aggregate sum of all the numbers of every single planet amounts to the precise total requiring to be divided into portions of time;[55] since, even if it be admitted that this total, collected from every single star, is correctly asserted by the Ægyptians, it may still be objected that the same total, so collected by them, may be found in many other ways by interchanging the numbers in a sign. There are persons also who contend that in every latitude the same space of time is occupied in ascension by every star; this, however, is manifestly wrong: for, in the first place, these persons are guided by the vulgar opinion of the plane heights of ascension, which is totally foreign to truth, and according to which, in the parallel of Lower Ægypt, the signs of Virgo and Libra would ascend each in thirty-eight degrees and a third,[56] and Leo and Scorpio each in thirty-five degrees; when it is, on the contrary, shown by the Tables,[57] that the latter two signs occupy in their several ascensions more than thirty-five degrees each, but Virgo and Libra less. It should further be observed, that those who support this opinion seem (by so doing) not only to dispute the quantity of the terms most generally received, but to be driven also to the necessity of falsifying many points; since (as it is indispensable to keep to the same total amount of all the terms together) they make use of parts of degrees; but even that contrivance does not enable them to reach the true point. [55] This total is the 360 degrees of the zodiac, requiring to be divided according to correspondent portions of the equator; by which all time is reckoned. [56] The degrees here mentioned are degrees of the equator. [57] See, in the Appendix, an extract from these tables; the whole of which are to be found in the Almagest. The old terms, admitted by many persons on the authority of former tradition, are as follows: THE TERMS ACCORDING TO THE ÆGYPTIANS