Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) by Herbert Spencer (best mobile ebook reader TXT) 📖

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Furnished Also The   Standard Measures Required In Later Times. One

Instance Occurs In Our Own History. To Remedy The   Irregularities Then

Prevailing, Henry I. Commanded That The   Ulna, Or Ancient Ell, Which

Answers To The   Modern Yard, Should Be Made Of    The   Exact Length Of    _His

Own Arm_.

 

 

 

Measures Of    Weight Again Had A Like Derivation. Seeds Seem Commonly To

Have Supplied The   Unit. The   Original Of    The   Carat Used For Weighing In

India Is _A Small Bean_. Our Own Systems, Both Troy And Avoirdupois, Are

Derived Primarily From Wheat-Corns. Our Smallest Weight, The   Grain, Is

_A Grain Of    Wheat_. This Is Not A Speculation; It Is An Historically

Registered Fact. Henry Iii. Enacted That An Ounce Should Be The   Weight

Of 640 Dry Grains Of    Wheat From The   Middle Of    The   Ear. And As All The

Other Weights Are Multiples Or Sub-Multiples Of    This, It Follows That

The Grain Of    Wheat Is The   Basis Of    Our Scale. So Natural Is It To Use

Organic Bodies As Weights, Before Artificial Weights Have Been

Established, Or Where They Are Not To Be Had, That In Some Of    The

Remoter Parts Of    Ireland The   People Are Said To Be In The   Habit, Even

Now, Of    Putting A Man Into The   Scales To Serve As A Measure For Heavy

Commodities.

 

 

 

Similarly With Time. Astronomical Periodicity, And The   Periodicity Of

Animal And Vegetable Life, Are Simultaneously Used In The   First Stages

Of Progress For Estimating Epochs. The   Simplest Unit Of    Time, The   Day,

Nature Supplies Ready Made. The   Next Simplest Period, The   Mooneth Or

Month, Is Also Thrust Upon Men's Notice By The   Conspicuous Changes

Constituting A Lunation. For Larger Divisions Than These, The   Phenomena

Of The   Seasons, And The   Chief Events From Time To Time Occurring, Have

Been Used By Early And Uncivilised Races. Among The   Egyptians The   Rising

Of The   Nile Served As A Mark. The   New Zealanders Were Found To Begin

Their Year From The   Reappearance Of    The   Pleiades Above The   Sea. One Of

The Uses Ascribed To Birds, By The   Greeks, Was To Indicate The   Seasons

By Their Migrations. Barrow Describes The   Aboriginal Hottentot As

Denoting Periods By The   Number Of    Moons Before Or After The   Ripening Of

One Of    His Chief Articles Of    Food. He Further States That The   Kaffir

Chronology Is Kept By The   Moon, And Is Registered By Notches On

Sticks--The Death Of    A Favourite Chief, Or The   Gaining Of    A Victory,

Serving For A New Era. By Which Last Fact, We Are At Once Reminded That

In Early History, Events Are Commonly Recorded As Occurring In Certain

Reigns, And In Certain Years Of    Certain Reigns: A Proceeding Which

Practically Made A King's Reign A Measure Of    Duration.

 

 

 

And, As Further Illustrating The   Tendency To Divide Time By Natural

Phenomena And Natural Events, It May Be Noticed That Even By Our Own

Peasantry The   Definite Divisions Of    Months And Years Are But Little

Used; And That They Habitually Refer To Occurrences As "Before

Sheep-Shearing," Or "After Harvest," Or "About The   Time When The   Squire

Died." It Is Manifest, Therefore, That The   More Or Less Equal Periods

Perceived In Nature Gave The   First Units Of    Measure For Time; As Did

Nature's More Or Less Equal Lengths And Weights Give The   First Units Of

Measure For Space And Force.

Part 2 Chapter 3 (On The Genesis Of Science) Pg 111

 

It Remains Only To Observe, As Further Illustrating The   Evolution Of

Quantitative Ideas After This Manner, That Measures Of    Value Were

Similarly Derived. Barter, In One Form Or Other, Is Found Among All But

The Very Lowest Human Races. It Is Obviously Based Upon The   Notion Of

_Equality Of    Worth_. And As It Gradually Merges Into Trade By The

Introduction Of    Some Kind Of    Currency, We Find That The   _Measures Of

Worth_, Constituting This Currency, Are Organic Bodies; In Some Cases

_Cowries_, In Others _Cocoa-Nuts_, In Others _Cattle_, In Others _Pigs_;

Among The   American Indians Peltry Or _Skins_, And In Iceland _Dried

Fish_.

 

 

 

Notions Of    Exact Equality And Of    Measure Having Been Reached, There Came

To Be Definite Ideas Of    Relative Magnitudes As Being Multiples One Of

Another; Whence The   Practice Of    Measurement By Direct Apposition Of    A

Measure. The   Determination Of    Linear Extensions By This Process Can

Scarcely Be Called Science, Though It Is A Step Towards It; But The

Determination Of    Lengths Of    Time By An Analogous Process May Be

Considered As One Of    The   Earliest Samples Of    Quantitative Prevision. For

When It Is First Ascertained That The   Moon Completes The   Cycle Of    Her

Changes In About Thirty Days--A Fact Known To Most Uncivilised Tribes

That Can Count Beyond The   Number Of    Their Fingers--It Is Manifest That

It Becomes Possible To Say In What Number Of    Days Any Specified Phase Of

The Moon Will Recur; And It Is Also Manifest That This Prevision Is

Effected By An Opposition Of    Two Times, After The   Same Manner That

Linear Space Is Measured By The   Opposition Of    Two Lines. For To Express

The Moon's Period In Days, Is To Say How Many Of    These Units Of    Measure

Are Contained In The   Period To Be Measured--Is To Ascertain The   Distance

Between Two Points In Time By Means Of    A _Scale Of    Days_, Just As We

Ascertain The   Distance Between Two Points In Space By A Scale Of    Feet Or

Inches: And In Each Case The   Scale Coincides With The   Thing

Measured--Mentally In The   One; Visibly In The   Other. So That In This

Simplest, And Perhaps Earliest Case Of    Quantitative Prevision, The

Phenomena Are Not Only Thrust Daily Upon Men's Notice, But Nature Is, As

It Were, Perpetually Repeating That Process Of    Measurement By Observing

Which The   Prevision Is Effected. And Thus There May Be Significance In

The Remark Which Some Have Made, That Alike In Hebrew, Greek, And Latin,

There Is An Affinity Between The   Word Meaning Moon, And That Meaning

Measure.

 

 

 

This Fact, That In Very Early Stages Of    Social Progress It Is Known That

The Moon Goes Through Her Changes In About Thirty Days, And That In

About Twelve Moons The   Seasons Return--This Fact That Chronological

Astronomy Assumes A Certain Scientific Character Even Before Geometry

Does; While It Is Partly Due To The   Circumstance That The   Astronomical

Divisions, Day, Month, And Year, Are Ready Made For Us, Is Partly Due To

The Further Circumstances That Agricultural And Other Operations Were At

First Regulated Astronomically, And That From The   Supposed Divine

Nature Of    The   Heavenly Bodies Their Motions Determined The   Periodical

Religious Festivals. As Instances Of    The   One We Have The   Observation Of

The Egyptians, That The   Rising Of    The   Nile Corresponded With The

Heliacal Rising Of    Sirius; The   Directions Given By Hesiod For Reaping

And Ploughing, According To The   Positions Of    The   Pleiades; And His Maxim

That "Fifty Days After The   Turning Of    The   Sun Is A Seasonable Time For

Beginning A Voyage." As Instances Of    The   Other, We Have The   Naming Of

The Days After The   Sun, Moon, And Planets; The   Early Attempts Among

Eastern Nations To Regulate The   Calendar So That The   Gods Might Not Be

Offended By The   Displacement Of    Their Sacrifices; And The   Fixing Of    The

Great Annual Festival Of    The   Peruvians By The   Position Of    The   Sun. In

All Which Facts We See That, At First, Science Was Simply An Appliance

Of Religion And Industry.

 

 

 

After The   Discoveries That A Lunation Occupies Nearly Thirty Days, And

That Some Twelve Lunations Occupy A Year--Discoveries Of    Which There Is

No Historical Account, But Which May Be Inferred As The   Earliest, From

The Fact That Existing Uncivilised Races Have Made Them--We Come To The

First Known Astronomical Records, Which Are Those Of    Eclipses. The

Chaldeans Were Able To Predict These. "This They Did, Probably," Says

Dr. Whewell In His Useful History, From Which Most Of    The   Materials We

Are About To Use Will Be Drawn, "By Means Of    Their Cycle Of    223 Months,

Or About Eighteen Years; For At The   End Of    This Time, The   Eclipses Of

The Moon Begin To Return, At The   Same Intervals And In The   Same Order As

At The   Beginning." Now This Method Of    Calculating Eclipses By Means Of    A

Recurring Cycle,--The _Saros_ As They Called It--Is A More Complex Case

Of Prevision By Means Of    Coincidence Of    Measures. For By What

Observations Must The   Chaldeans Have Discovered This Cycle? Obviously,

As Delambre Infers, By Inspecting Their Registers; By Comparing The

Successive Intervals; By Finding That Some Of    The   Intervals Were Alike;

By Seeing That These Equal Intervals Were Eighteen Years Apart; By

Discovering That _All_ The   Intervals That Were Eighteen Years Apart Were

Equal; By Ascertaining That The   Intervals Formed A Series Which Repeated

Itself, So That If One Of    The   Cycles Of    Intervals Were Superposed On

Another The   Divisions Would Fit. This Once Perceived, And It Manifestly

Became Possible To Use The   Cycle As A Scale Of    Time By Which To Measure

Out Future Periods. Seeing Thus That The   Process Of    So Predicting

Eclipses Is In Essence The   Same As That Of    Predicting The   Moon's Monthly

Changes, By Observing The   Number Of    Days After Which They Repeat--Seeing

That The   Two Differ Only In The   Extent And Irregularity Of    The

Intervals, It Is Not Difficult To Understand How Such An Amount Of

Knowledge Should So Early Have Been Reached. And We Shall Be Less

Surprised, On Remembering That The   Only Things Involved In These

Previsions Were _Time_ And _Number_; And That The   Time Was In A Manner

Self-Numbered.

 

 

 

Still, The   Ability To Predict Events Recurring Only After So Long A

Period As Eighteen Years, Implies A Considerable Advance In

Civilisation--A Considerable Development Of    General Knowledge; And We

Have Now To Inquire What Progress In Other Sciences Accompanied, And Was

Necessary To, These Astronomical Previsions. In The   First Place, There

Must Clearly Have Been A Tolerably Efficient System Of    Calculation. Mere

Finger-Counting, Mere Head-Reckoning, Even With The   Aid Of    A Regular

Decimal Notation, Could Not Have Sufficed For Numbering The   Days In A

Year; Much Less The   Years, Months, And Days Between Eclipses.

Consequently There Must Have Been A Mode Of    Registering Numbers;

Probably Even A System Of    Numerals. The   Earliest Numerical Records, If

We May Judge By The   Practices Of    The   Less Civilised Races Now Existing,

Were Probably Kept By Notches Cut On Sticks, Or Strokes Marked On Walls;

Much As Public-House Scores Are Kept Now. And There Seems Reason To

Believe That The   First Numerals Used Were Simply Groups Of    Straight

Strokes, As Some Of    The   Still-Extant Roman Ones Are; Leading Us To

Suspect That These Groups Of    Strokes Were Used To Represent Groups Of

Fingers, As The   Groups Of    Fingers Had Been Used To Represent Groups Of

Objects--A Supposition Quite In Conformity With The   Aboriginal System Of

Part 2 Chapter 3 (On The Genesis Of Science) Pg 112

Picture Writing And Its Subsequent Modifications. Be This So Or Not,

However, It Is Manifest That Before The   Chaldeans Discovered Their

_Saros_, There Must Have Been Both A Set Of    Written Symbols Serving For

An Extensive Numeration, And A Familiarity With The   Simpler Rules Of

Arithmetic.

 

 

 

Not Only Must Abstract Mathematics Have Made Some Progress, But Concrete

Mathematics Also. It Is Scarcely Possible That The   Buildings Belonging

To This Era Should Have Been Laid Out And Erected Without Any Knowledge

Of Geometry. At Any Rate, There Must Have Existed That Elementary

Geometry Which Deals With Direct Measurement--With The   Apposition Of

Lines; And It Seems That Only After The   Discovery Of    Those Simple

Proceedings, By Which Right Angles Are Drawn, And