Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1890-12-24
THE ORIGIN OF CHRIsTMAs.


Won Falkenhausen, in Bielau.
THE ORIGIN OF CHRIsTMAs.
To the Editor Of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
Kant and his school of metaphysicians
got the best of their ideas from Aristotle.
Kant did little more than put Aristotle's
ideas into modern dress so as to make
them acceptable to the Kenigsberg Ger
mans living about him. As there seems
to be revival of Kantism, and as one
mans ideas are as good as another's on q
subject about which neither knows a thing,
let Kants ideas for the nonce be accepted.
Kant's notion is that man has certain
priori intellectual powers, categories Aris-
totle calls them, which are not the result
of experience, but are inborn, part of the
nature which distinguishes him from the
brute. IF all things came by experience
sufficient experience might promote a jack
ass to professorship of metaphysics.
This simple example shows the profundity
of Kant's mind. Of Kant's innate ideas,
or powers, the apprehension of the course
of time is conspicuous. 1t would be i'm
possible in short article to devote space
to unfolding Kant's meaning of the appre-
hension, or perception, of the course of
time.
occurred at such time, an idea is con-
veyed If he state that it occurred in
such a color, no idea is conveyed. In ref
erence to facts, man has an apprehension
of time and can compare times; but as yet
he has no apprehension of fact occurring
in color. 1t makes no difference to the
human intellect in its present undevel-
oped and feeble condition whether the
Fourth of July, for instance, took place
in green, red, blue or pink. 1t may one
of these days; it doesn't now. Let man
be thankful that he has the apprehensions
discovered for him by Aristotle and Kant,
and not waste time longing for those
which philosophers, actuated by the best
of motives, continue to withhold.
If Kant's apprehensions be not the re-
suit of experience and, therefore, not the
result of slow growth and prolonged de-
velopment, they must have come all of
sudden, like an electric shock or an apo
plectic fit. On his way from apehood to
manhood man, at some one instant of
time, abruptly felts.the full realization of
the perception of time. UP to this most
important instant man, so far as time is
concerned, was under the control of in
stinct. He had no more apprehension of
time than cat. A cat has some kind of
notion of the difference between twelve
o'clock and half past three; but it is mere
ly an instructive notion; probably connect
ed with saucer of milk, or with the hab-
its of the fox-terrier next door. A ration
al perception of time is very different
thing.
Another point. This sudden revelation
came to man in the spring. Of course it
| can't be proved that it came in the spring,
but the probabilities are strong. In the
spring nature leaps forth suddenly to re-
newed life. Bears shake off their physi-
cal torpor in the spring. Man must have
shaken off his intellectual torpor about
the same time; for nature exerts herself
heroically but once year. Seeds germi-
nate in the spring; plants bud; leaves
start; grass grows; hens lay. There can.
therefore, be little doubt in the mind of
the unprejudiced that the perception of
time came to his ancestor in the spring.
What a change it was to be suddenly con-
| fronted with days and hours, minutes and
| weeks, and to be conscious of an innate
power within to distinguish the ones from
the others! Now for the first time in his
life he knew when it was time to get up,
when time to go to bed; the right time for
the dinner bell, the church bell and all the
| other bells; the difference between q good
| time and bad time; between a very good
time and h. Well, never mind. OF
course with the perception came the re-
sponsibility. He had free choice to lie
a-bed and be sinner, or to get up and
read his catechism betimes. Many NOR
al philosopher to-day thinks the race
would have remained happier under the
guidance of instinct, and that free will
has furnished many q free lunch counter
of misery. Who knowsa The question is
] vast and vastly sad. Mans first use OF
time was to measure it. He naturally
wanted to size up his new possession. In
those days there were no Mayfower clocks
or Waterbury watches. The Mayhowel
was still serenely reposing in the proto
plastic germ from which came the oak OF
which her hull was framed. Waterbury
was unknown. 1t is doubtful if any New
Litchfield, would presume to lay claim t'
so remote an origin. But man has always
had his wits about him. He gave hi,
mind to his new experiences and soon per
ceived that at one particular time OF th'
day his shadow was shortest. Like sen
sible party he took the time intervening
between two such occurrences as unit o
measurement. How the modern lido
came to measure his unit from midnight
when it is as dark as dark can be, when b
is asleep, or ought to be, and when TO
!. | l.. hr.r11s q
, not. see with his own eyes whether tn
, unit has started or not, is a question
: for PSYCHOLOGISTS Having his unit estab
lished he was all right, whether he oalle'
it day, jour, tag, dia or giorno; or wheth
| er he divided it into hours, heures, stun
den, horas or oras.
, So man is to be imagined walking 81
8 rene and happy in his daily round; risin
with the sun, reclining with the same, er
ioying the balmy days of June, full of lift
energy and enterprise, without a fear q
: an apprehension to cloud his beatitud'
Q Truly this was the golden age of whic
g Hesiod sings, and to which the earllei
traditions bear witness.
sNow it happened that about a month a
forwards a lad who had been away on bu
: mess, coming home, met his lassie, an
It the two took their accustomed walk U
K Prospect Hill. He had timed himself a
: curately SO often before that he had 1
doubt of returning his precious charge
% her pas cabin before the return of the /
h aforesaid, with whom, on account of s
5, cial inequalities, he was not on the best
n terms Alas, he missed It'll The sun wei
down before he knew it; and the pa ga'
/ him such an awful walloping that f
W days he was in bed. This gave time f
is reflection. The more he thought the ma
!. ter over the more impossible it seem'
that he could have miscalculated. Fro
y such shadow to such shadow; so mut
ID walk, so many hugs and SO many busse
st Yet they had been cut short in their hu
I and busses, and their walk down the b
:, had degenerated into an undignifed al