to the countries from which
they had been borrowed." In the case of India and China it is an
established and accepted truth that an active communication existed
between these countries and Asia Minor, which was carried on by a race of
seafarers and colonists. When it is realized that, through them, distant
regions became known and accessible, and that at one time in the history
of Greek philosophy, for instance, statesmen, philosophers and
mathematicians alike rivalled each other in planning ideal states, based
on the identical principle: the harmonizing of human life with Nature's
laws; it seems but rational to infer that, at different times, bands of
enthusiasts, adopting one numerical scheme in preference to another, and
led perhaps by its inventor or disciples, set out in search of distant
countries where they could undisturbedly establish "celestial kingdoms"
according to their ideal plan. To such an enterprise as this I venture to
assign the establishment of the celestial kingdom of China, drawing
attention to Biot's statement, cited on p. 298, that year cycles (_i. e._
the sociological and chronological system since in use) were introduced
there from India, after the Christian era. This being the case, contrary
to the claims of a much greater antiquity by Chinese scholars, the present
form of the "celestial kingdom" appears to date from the arrival in China,
from Persia, of Semitic emigrants, during the first century of our era
(see p. 303), and to have undergone a certain re-modelling in the first
half of the sixth century, after the arrival of a band of Syrian
Christians (p. 304).

Pointing out that these dates would make it appear as though the cyclical
systems of India and Eastern Asia had been formulated under the direct or
indirect influence of Greek philosophy, I observe that the date of their
introduction and establishment assigns them to approximately the same
period which produced the numerical scheme adopted by Constantine, Maya
and Mexican calendrical and chronological scheme. At the period when
Constantine established New Rome and instituted four divisions of the
empire, each divided into thirteen yielding a total of fifty-two
prefectures, there lived in Byzantium a philosopher and rhetorician
(315-390 A.D.) whose name was Themistius and who filled the office of
prefect of Constantinople. It is well known that the attempt thus to
organize the empire proved fruitless and that the proclamation of
Chri