―293―For the Literary Magazine.
THE society of friends (or qua-
kers) have religious scruples against
the use of the names of days, which
custom has established in the Eng-
lish language. They think it impi-
ous and idolatrous to call the third
day of the week, for instance, Tues-
day, because this name was origi-
nally given in honour of an imagi-
nary deity called Tuisco. In con-
sequence of these scruples, they
have laid aside the ordinary names,
and adopted the numerical distinc-
tion of first, second, third, and so on.
There are many who will not be
able to discover any force in this
objection; but who, though they
may deem it no impiety to use
names, which have totally lost their
original significance, and the very
etymology of which is unknown to
the mass of mankind, yet may think
these names liable to objection on
this very account, that they have
either an absurd meaning, or no
meaning at all. They may highly
approve the numerical names of the
days, not because the names they
have supplanted are idolatrous or
superstitious, but because they, them-
selves, are more significant and
proper.
―294―The same objection has been made,
by the same sect, to the ordinary
names of the months: an objection,
however, that in no sense is appli-
cable to more than eight in twelve
of these names: for the remaining
four (September, October, Novem-
ber, and December) are numerical.
Though we may fail to discover the
impiety of these names, used in the
manner in which they are now used,
their absurdity is sufficiently appa-
rent.
The French, in their revolution-
ary rage, adopted new divisions of
the year, and new names for these
divisions. The old ones, it must be
owned, were absurd enough. A
change was not ineligible; but, in
making this change, the French
were guilty of more enormous blun-
ders than those which they explod-
ed. To make their new names sig-
nificant, they made them conform
to the seasons, as they were known
at the meridian of Paris. Now, as
the order of the seasons is exactly
reversed in the two hemispheres,
and their number and succession es-
sencially varies in every fifteen or
twenty degrees of latitude, no change
could possibly be more productive
of contradiction and confusion than
this. It will, indeed, be found, that
every system of names, in relation
to the days of the week, the months,
or the seasons, is liable to insupera-
ble objections, except the numeri-
cal. All mankind are able to count
as far as ten or twelve: this mode
is adapted, therefore, to all nations,
and the reason of it must be intelli-
gible and evident alike to the Mo-
hawk Indian and the Japanese
Bonze.
There is another very evident
advantage which this system pos-
sesses. The numerical signs are
known to be common to all the Eu-
ropean nations, and to all the nations
(which are to be) of the western
hemisphere. These signs, therefore,
possess the inestimable properties
of a universal language, and the
names of the days, months, and sea-
sons, would thus be rendered, not
only philosophically accurate and
proper, but universally familiar and
intelligible.