The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1891-09-19

the World was SLOWLY Learning ho" w
Count it Had no History.
The invention Of the almanac was the
beginning of history, in the sense that
history is philosophy teaching by example.
Previous to that important and convenient
revelation, there was practically no basis
Of comparison, no process of marking the
course Of time, no means of connecting the
past with the present, and the present with
the future. The art of calculation, the
whole great system of mathematics, had
its origin in the pebble device, used to
count sheep by dropping pebble in bas-
ket for each one as it passed until an entire
flock got by, then enumerating another
flock in the same way, and finally deter
mining the relative numbers Of the two by
alternately taking pebble from each bas-
ket until one was exhausted. Next came
the chalk-marks or straight lines, in blocks
of five, the last being drawn across the
other four at an angle, which plan is still
largely employed; then the plan of two
notched sticks-the first double-entry
idea-was evolved; then came the digit
system of counting in fves and tens with
the fingers, and, finally, the Arabic nota-
ton, with its ten symbols or figures, super
seded all other methods.
1t is easy to understand thai while the
world was thus slowly learning how to
count it could have no history. There
was no way to record events or to adjust
and combine facts. The pebbles and
chalk-marks and notched sticks only
answered the crude purpose of life that
took no account of yesterday or tomorrow,
In was not possible for the average mind
to have any conception of dates or periods,
distances or localities. The relation of
what was to what had been and what might
be did not enter into the prevailing order
Of thought and feeling. One day was as q
thousand:years and thousand,.years as one
day. The things of the past were as ii
they had never been, because nothing was
preserved; and things Of the future signi-
fed nothing, because the faculty of com
prehension stopped with what the eye could
see and the feet tread upon. Men ate and
slept, propagated and died, and that wa:
all. They were even bereft of dreams, for
there could be no dreaming where there wa:
no power to imagine anything outside of the
dull and narrow conditions of such form
of existence.
That was the era of absolute freedom
when each person stood apart, king in
his own right and responsible only as the
beasts were that disputed dominion with
him over the earth. Individualism had
full opportunity. Mr.. Bellamys backward
looking policy of socialism, of life without
class distinctions or laws of discrimination
was thoroughly realized. But it was ;
spectacle of ignorance, or monotony, o
stagnation. The world did not move
strictly speaking, and life was not worth
living. There was the alleged blessedness
of having no annals, but the felicity i'm
piled utter emptiness. The people wer,
exempt from what Emerson calls "bondagt
to the past" but that only meant that they
had not yet learned the first lesson of civil
ization. They were simply in the sam,
category with the abounding vendure ant
foliage-simply so much garss and arbor
escence, wind-swept and unutilized. The
secret of progress was withheld from them
and theywere not able to justify their pres
ence on the planet either in practice or il
theory.
There was no intellectual growth, ne
permanent escape from the right of saw
agery, so long as the gift of measuring
space and time was absent; men began t
be men only when they acquired that ad
vantage, and were able to connect the ex
periences of one generation with the neces
sites Of the next, or, in other words, t
grasp the doctrine Of accumulation which
is the source of all development. Wher
/ they came to see that the whole was greater
than any part, and that part was nothing
unless rooted to the whole, they were PLACED
in the way of fharmonizing themselves with
their environment and accomplishing san,
and useful results. Time was invested
with appreciable value, and the procession
of the days took on practical purport
Wings were provided for Intelligence Th
Gagged reason of the race secured the soariD,
privilege; and its horizon widened with
every effort. First the pebbles were cas-
away, then the notched sticks, then tn
digital device; and thus the dawn of histor,
slowly but surely approached.
The first almanacs- is to say, tn
first histories Of Arabian origin, an,
reflected the local genius of the people il
a very striking way. They served a
models in other countries for hundreds O
years. The Oldest known copy of such
! work is preserved in the British Museum