iii. p. 283.

[36] Pol. Pos. iii. p. 78.

[37] Ibid. iii. p. 346.

[38] Pol. Pos. iii. p. 346.

[39] Ibid. i. p. 562.

[40] Pol. Pos. i. p. 106. In my first article (CONTEMPORARY REVIEW for
May, p. 211) I inadvertently spoke of the hierarchical arrangement of
society as extending to the proletariate. This is inaccurate, for Comte
rather dwells on their "homogeneity," and seeks to obliterate all
distinctions of rank among them, only allowing to the engineers a kind
of "fraternal ascendancy." Pol. Pos. iv. p. 307.

[41] Pol. Pos. iv. p. 294.

[42] Pol. Pos. iv. p. 292.

THE PROBLEM OF THE GREAT PYRAMID.

A few months ago I endeavoured to trace out, in these pages, the
probable origin of the week, as a measure of time, by a method which has
not hitherto, so far as I know, been followed in such cases. I followed
chiefly a line of _a priori_ reasoning, considering how herdsmen and
tillers of the soil would be apt at a very early period to use the moon
as a means of measuring time, and how in endeavouring so to use her they
would almost of necessity be led to employ special methods of
subdividing the period during which she passes through her various
phases. But while each step of the reasoning was thus based on _a
priori_ considerations, its validity was tested by the evidence which
has reached us respecting the various methods employed by different
nations of antiquity for following the moon's motions. It appears to me
that the conclusions to which this method of reasoning led were more
satisfactory, because more trustworthy, than those which have been
reached respecting the week by the mere study of various traditions
which have reached us respecting the early use of this widespread time
measure.

I now propose to apply a somewhat similar method to a problem which has
always been regarded as at once highly interesting and very difficult,
the question of the purpose for which the pyramids of Egypt, and
especially the pyramids of Ghizeh, were erected. But I do not here take
the full problem under consideration. I have, indeed, elsewhere dealt
with it in a general manner, and have been led to a theory respecting
the pyramids which will be touched on towards the close of the present
paper. Here, however, I intend to deal only with one special part of the
problem, that part to which alone the method I propose to employ is
applicable--the question of the astronomical purpose which the pyramids
were intended