7. In order to teach astronomical geography thoroughly and methodically, we should follow up successively in the course of study all the phases that this subject has in the course of its historical development passed through. The Homeric age regarded the earth as a plane and the firmament as a vault, and this viewpont of sense-perception should also be the startingpoint for rational instruction in astronomical geography. The pupils should observe the phenomena to be seen in the heavens both by day and by night, and by and by they should note the variations produced with the change of the seasons. The equator and the tropical circles should first be regarded as paths of the sun, as their names imply: tropics being derived from the Greek Tрóо, (turnings, i. e., of the sun) and equator being an inaccurate rendering of the Greek lonμepivós, the equinoctial. The annual path of the sun should be regarded as a spiral line traversed twice; and the ecliptic, as a line obtained by marking with dots the daily position of the sun. The celestial globe, placed for the local altitude of the pole, is the most essential apparatus at this stage of teaching. As the observer here regards himself as standing in the centre of the universe, the viewpoint can be called anthropocentric. We get away from this viewpoint by recalling reports and accounts of the heavenly phenomena observed in other places; and herein, too, the history of geography and the instruction go hand in hand. Still, the teacher need not slavishly follow the very oldest reports on the subject. Herodotus speaks of the satyrs of the extreme North, as sleeping six months and of the mariners who, sailing around Africa, saw the midday sun in the north (III, 24 and IV, 42). The well of Syene, where the sun was reflected only at the summer solstice, was an object of wonderment to the ancients. When Magellan returned from his trip around the world he found that his calendar showed the 6th day of September, whereas the calendar of his startingpoint showed the 7th day. Until recently the calendars of Macao and Manila differed by one day, and this was due to the different routes by which the several discoverers first reached the two places. These and other similar facts may lead the pupils to change their view of the universe and to adopt the Ptolomaic system, or the geocentric viewpoint, which regards the earth as a globe suspended in the middle of the universe. The new facts should be illustrated with the aid of the celestial globe, and the pupils should learn to set it for other altitudes than the local. The study of the terrestrial globe is now in order. Its circles should be explained as projections of the circles discovered on the celestial globe. Charts showing the latitude and longitude for places in different zones, the meridian, the two tropical circles, and some of the heavenly phenomena will familiarize the pupils with the new point of view. The pupils must now be led gradually to abandon the idea of the daily revolution of the heavens, and to this end the study of the heavenly bodies should now be taken up. Their immense distances from the earth and their great diversity may serve best to raise doubts about their revolving around the earth. Thus the geocentric view may be modified to agree with the teachings of the Pythagorean Ekphantos and the Platonist Heracleides Pontikos, who held that the earth revolved, but did not move forward in space.' Some few exercises will familiarize the pupils with this view; and they must, step by step, abandon their earlier views. The motion is no longer from the east to the west, but from the west to the east; the sun no longer rises and sets, but the earth moves towards it and then away from it; our horizon is not stationary, awaiting, as it were, the coming and passing of the stars, but is to be conceived as a disk which is joined at one end to the earth and thus moves along with it. 4 The astronomers were so long in taking the last step in the development of their science, i. e., in discovering the forward motion of the earth, solely because of the analogy of the sun and the moon. They were familiar with the moon's revolving around the earth in a month, for they observed its daily retard of 50 minutes. They were familiar, too, with the sun's annual rotation, for this they figured out from its daily retard of minutes. But they did not venture to assume different causes for the motions of the sun and the moon; and thus the sun. remained a satellite of the earth. But the Egyptians had previously discovered the relations of the inner planets, Mercury and Venus, to the sun, and it was this relationship which finally led the astronomers to study the monthly path of the moon, the positions of the planets, especially of Venus, and the analogy of the latter planet with the earth. Now we are ready to take the last step, to accept the Copernican or heliocentric system. After taking this step we must 1 Plut., de plac. phil., III, 13. again change our previous conception, and the teacher will do well not to represent, as is usually done, the earth's orbit as horizontal and its axis as inclined, but instead he should incline the earth's orbit and place its axis in a perpendicular position; for thus the earth is readily conceived as passing up and down its orbit. It is then easy to explain the high and middle and low position of the earth; the solstices will appear as the points. of the earth's turning; the rising of the sun in spring will appear as the earth's setting; and the setting of the sun in autumn, as the earth's rising. The modification which consists in turning to the illustrative methods usually employed, will then offer no difficulties. To give a course, as is outlined here, the teacher must first have a good view of the historical development of the science. He must, furthermore, not grow impatient with any apparently slow progress on the part of his pupils, but must return again and again to the same points. He must teach his pupils to observe how with the change of the seasons the days and the midday shadows vary in length. He must also teach them to follow the motions of the stars, and here a simple apparatus, modeled after the theodolite of the old astronomers, will be found most serviceable. The passing of the star out of the field of vision, the necessity of changing the position of the rod along which the eye passed, so that its position towards the horizontal and the perpendicular circle upon which it was projected, is now different, and the divisible motion of the rod rendering easy an illustration of the star's motion-all these factors were the first and basic elements in the history of astronomy, and they are still invaluable for bringing home to the mind many important facts. CHAPTER XLIII. On the Organico-Genetic Treatment of the Science of Language. 1. Of all school subjects, grammar offers most difficulties in applying the organico-genetic principle. In its present form, which has been handed down from the ancients, it is the very reverse of an organic system. The practice of beginning Latin grammar with mensa, mense violates in no less than six points the organico-genetic principle. (1) Mensa is the starting-point for the study of the parts of speech, which is followed by the study of syntax, whereas the organic principle demands just the reverse order. In language the whole exists before the parts. The thought that is to be expressed, is the first and creates the words and forms. The starting-point for all form-systems is the function that they are expected to fulfil in language, i. e., in the sentence. (2) The declensions are not the first of the form-systems, because they are based on the relationship of the object and are modified by the relationship of the attributes. But these two relationships are, compared with the relationship between the subject and the predicate, only secondary, so that the forms to which the primary relationship, that between the subject and the predicate, gives rise-such as, number, person of the verb, tenses should be treated first. (3) What is known as the first or the A declension, for which mensa is used as a paradigm, is a morphological category, and its members are the cases, which, being derived from the relationship of the object, are logical categories. But from the organico-genetic viewpoint the logical element must precede the morphological, and hence the formation of the different cases should be the first principle for making a division, while the variations in this formation, which are conditioned upon the final letter, are but a secondary consideration. Consequently, the group should be not: mensa, mensæ, mensæ, etc., and hortus, horti, horto, etc.; but: mensa, hortus, leo, etc., and mensæ, horti, leonis, etc. (4) But considered even morphologically, the A declension is secondary and developed later than the third, the consonant declension, because in the nominative plural the A declension shows traces of pronominal forms. (5) Considered as a word, mensa is likewise of a secondary character; being derived from metiri, it is not a root-word. (6) The meaning of mensa, a measured thing, a table, also discloses derivation. And hence, if the genetic principle is to be recognized in dictionary matters, mensa is inferior in two points to other paradigms, such as via, for the latter has preserved more of the root as well as of its primary meaning. Thus the genetic principle would relegate to the rear a word that has occupied for so long a time the first page of the Latin grammar. Mager compares the prevalent method of grammatical instruction with a watchmaker who would train his apprentice, not by taking apart a watch, but by merely showing him the wheels and other parts that enter into the making of a timepiece. "Etymology," he adds, "is the result of many analyses made by the grammarians. The pupil knows and sees nothing of these analyses. He sees only a bulky volume full of lessons. which he is to get by heart, but he is never told that these are parts of a whole. Yet it is only in the whole that the parts function, and it is only in the whole that one can see the import of each part.... What is essential in each part, its soul, its purpose, all this remains obscure in etymology. Every form of a word is solely an effect, the effect of a syntactical fact, which is the cause. But you can not look at an effect intelligently without looking at the same time at the cause." However, to remedy this defect, it is not enough to apply the language-forms as soon as they have been memorized; for this would require the application to precede the comprehension, the technical synthesis to precede the analysis; and, though this order is not absolutely wrong, it does violence to the spiritual nature of language. 2. Language is the expression of thought. This definition must be the starting-point, but should be worded more exactly. Language expresses not only thoughts, but also feelings, wishes, desires-in fact, the whole inner nature as such. In this regard, the logical view of the subject should be corrected by the psychological. Language expresses man's inner nature, but expresses it in the mode of thought. Language is articulate, not only phonetically, but also logically; and in this regard the relationship between grammar and logic may not be interfered with. An organic comprehension of language must proceed from the categories, upon which that articulation is based; and these categories produced, first, the parts of the sentence and, next, the parts of speech and forms of words, which develop and differentiate the non-logical motives of language. The logical foundations of the structure of language are, first of all, the two categories of being and acting, known also as existence and activity, or as substance and cause. To these categories we can trace the two constituent parts of the sentence, subject and predicate, as well as the two primary parts of speech, the noun and the verb. In the second place, we have the categories of quality and condition, i. e., of accidental being and accidental activity, therefore, of co-operation. To these cate 1 Die genetische Methode, pp. 50 ff. |