Читать книгу Primitive Time-reckoning. A study in the origins and first development of the art of counting time among the primitive and early culture peoples онлайн

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In the matter of the indication and reckoning of time, however, we have not to do with a number of conceptions which may be supposed to be as numerous and as various as we please. At the basis lies an accurately determined and limited and indeed small number of phenomena, which are the same for all peoples all over the globe, and can be combined only in a certain quite small number of ways. These phenomena may be divided into two main groups: (1) the phenomena of the heavens—sun, moon, and stars—and (2) the phases of Nature—the variations of the climate and of plant and animal life, which on their side determine the affairs of men; these, however, depend finally upon one of the heavenly bodies, viz. the sun. The claim that the comparative ethnological method can be justified only when we are dealing with a narrowly circumscribed number of factors is therefore here complied with, owing to the very nature of the subjects treated. The comparative method does not shew how things have happened in a special case in regard to one particular people: it only indicates what may have happened. But much is already gained if we can eliminate the impossibilities, since from the complete result of the development, no less than in other ways, we may obtain a certain basis for our deductions.