The Incas Civilization flourished in 15th century A.D. until its conquest by the Spanish in the 1530s. Their empire extended across western South America. It's described as the largest empire ever seen in the Americas and the largest in the world at that period...
"The proofs that the Incas had a real system of astronomy are scattered, partly in what remains of the monuments that were consecrated to the sun, and partly in the accounts of historians - accounts which, whether because their importance has not been suspected, or because of the difficulty of quoting them, most of them having been printed only once, others having remained in the state of manuscript, and very few of them having been translated, are but little known to men of science. Whatever the verity of the legends preserved in these accounts, we find a comparatively highly developed astronomical system among the Incas, of which the most interesting parts are here given from rare documents already published, and from American manuscripts and traditions. The work has not before been done so completely..."
This book deals with the aesthetic sense and religious sentiment in animals. "The mind of animals is a very old subject of discussion. Descartes and his school regarded an animal as a mere piece of machinery, like a clock or a turnspit. For man alone they reserved intelligence, meaning by that, memory, feeling, will, and reason. The story of Malebranche is well known: As he was going into his convent at the Oratory with a friend, a little bitch ran up and fawned on him; he gave her a kick which sent the poor beast yelping off, and when his friend expressed surprise that so gentle, kindly, and Christian a person returned kicks for caresses, he exclaimed, "What! do you really suppose that that animal had any feeling?" Thus Malebranche not merely believed he had not wounded or grieved her; he even thought he had caused her no physical pain. This was denying clear proof, and pushing faith in his master's doctrine to absurdity. On the other hand, Montaigne, Leibnitz, La Fontaine, Bayle, Condillac, Madame de Sévigné, agreeing with all antiquity, from Pythagoras to Galen, assert that animals have all the organs of sensation and of feeling; that they possess will, desires, memory, ideas, combinations of ideas, and even the power of performing some moral acts, such as entertaining attachment like that a dog feels for his master, or a hen for her chicks; or, like "that very just equality which they practise in dividing food or other good things among their young," as Montaigne says; and that therefore the intelligence of animals, if not equal to man's, is at least like it, and that the differences between the oyster anchored to its rock and the homo sapiens of Linnæus are merely differences between more and less, degrees of succession that make up what is called the scale of being. It is the latter opinion that has been declared triumphant by the researches of natural history and those of comparative anatomy alike. On this point science has reached certainty, and every one, reading the story of "the two Rats, the Fox and the Egg," says now with La Fontaine: "After that tale, where's the pretenseThat animals are lacking sense?"
What are Species? In its most general acceptation the word "species" signifies a kind or sort of something, which something is the genus to which the species belongs. Thus, a black stone is a species of the genus stone; a gray horse is a species of the genus horse; a scalene triangle is a species of the genus triangle; and, generally, it may be said that every adjective denotes a species of the genus indicated by the substantive to which it is applied. In the technology of the physical sciences the term "species" has a more restricted signification. It is used to denote a group of individuals which corresponds with an early stage of that process of abstraction by which the qualities of individual objects are arranged in the subordinated categories of classification. The individual object alone exists in Nature; but, when individual objects are compared, it is found that many agree in all those characters which, for the particular purpose of the classifier, are regarded as important, while they differ only in those which are unimportant; and those which thus agree constitute a species, the definition of which is a statement of the common characters of the individuals which compose the species...
This book deals with What does the happiness depend on; and How to develop the art of being really happy. Be happy is a common desire to all humanity. Happiness is a mode of existence of which we naturally wish the duration, or in which we are willing to continue. It is "that inward state of perfect satisfaction which is joy and peace, and from which all desire is eliminated" wrote James Allen. "As the man thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains". How to develop this kind of thought that leads to a happy life?
This book deals with the works and the life of the great emperor and stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelus. He was the last of the Five Good Emperors of Roman Empire. He is known as one of the most important Stoic philosophers. His personal writings (The Meditations) are considered as a significant source to understand the Stoicism.
Be it or be it not true that man is "shapen in iniquity" and conceived in sin, it is unquestionably true that Government is begotten of aggression and by aggression. In small, undeveloped societies where for ages complete peace has continued, there exists nothing like what we call Government: no coercive agency, but mere honorary headship, if any headship at all. In these exceptional communities, unaggressive and from special causes unaggressed upon, there is so little deviation from the virtues of truthfulness, honesty, justice, and generosity, that nothing beyond an occasional expression of public opinion by informally-assembled elders is needful. Conversely, we find proofs that, at first recognized but temporarily during leadership in war, the authority of a chief is permanently established by continuity of war; and grows strong where successful aggression ends in subjection of neighboring tribes. And thence onward, examples furnished by all races put beyond doubt the truth that the coercive power of the chief, developing into king, and king of kings (a frequent title in the ancient East), becomes great in proportion as conquest becomes habitual and the union of subdued societies extensive. Comparisons disclose a further truth which should be ever present to us-the truth that the aggressiveness of the ruling power inside a society increases with its aggressiveness outside the society...
-The first settlers found here in the indigenous fruits, a promise of the abundant yield of the cultivated varieties which they were not long in introducing with most gratifying results.- The introduction of the first cultivated fruits in the country in 1824 by employees of the Hudson Bay Company is a pretty story with a touch of romance. At a dinner given in London, in 1824, to several young men in the employ of the Hudson Bay Company bound for the far distant Pacific Coast, a young lady at a table, beside one of the young gentlemen, ate an apple, carefully wrapped the seeds in a paper and placed them in the vest pocket of the young gentleman, with the request that when he arrived in the Oregon Country he should plant them and grow apple trees. The act was noticed and in a spirit of merriment other ladies present from the fruits of the table put seeds of apple, pears, peach, and grape into the vest pockets of all the gentlemen. On their arrival at the Hudson Bay fort at Vancouver the young gentlemen gave the seeds to the company's gardener, James Bruce, who planted them in the spring of 1825. From these seeds came the trees now growing on the grounds of the Vancouver barracks, as transferred to the Government on the disbanding of the company. This story we have from David McLoughlin, the son of Dr. John McLoughlin, Mrs. McLoughlin, Mrs. Whitman, in part, and others...
This book deals with the source and aim of Human Progress.
If we wish social life not to become stationary and stagnant, we should give free scope to all individuality and originality, no matter how eccentric they may seem to us. We should allow free play to all opinions, doctrines, and expressions of human thought, no matter how absurd and contagious the superstitions may appear to us. New ideas, ideals, and beliefs should not be persecuted but should rather be left for discussion and criticism, because we should not assume that we are in possession of the whole truth, and that no further advance is possible. We may learn from other people who look at the world from a different angle, and thus may be able to see things in a different light which may either add to the truth which we already possess, or may even transform it by some new additional element or principle which at first may appear to us as bizarre and paradoxical... The manifestation of the apparently false opinion keeps thought awake; it constantly challenges us, making us review again and again our established truths, and contributes to an ever deeper realization of what has been gained by severe thought and hard labor. The freedom of the seemingly false opinion and our tolerance of it and our willingness to meet with it in the open help test the validity of truth while keeping alive the critical sense which is the main spring of all advancement of human thought and is the vital point, the very soul, of all human progress. In a certain sense it may be said that it is the function of the false to keep the truth alive. The suppression of the freedom of thought or the liberty of individual expression, whether in speech or in press, is the crushing of all true human progress. Thus science, Sociology, Social Psychology, all go to confirm the same central attitude towards the free manifestation of individuality in the life existence of a well-ordered, progressive commonwealth...
The degree of power to remember differs in our various kinds of memory. One man can remember things seen; another can remember things heard; a third is skillful in the performance of certain motions, and may be said to possess a good motor-memory. "Memories of objects seen are located in the posterior part in the occipital region. Memories of sounds heard are located in the lower lateral part in the temporal region. Memories of motions in the limbs, and of touch in those limbs, are located side by side in the central lateral region. Memories of speech are located in the frontal region. It is therefore a mistake to speak of memory as a single faculty of the mind. It is really an assemblage of distinct memories which we possess, each kind of memory being as different from the others both in its nature and in its location as are the different organs of sense through which the original perception came. These various memories are associated with each other, and this association is secured by means of fibers passing between and joining these different areas. It is also a mistake to give memory as a whole a location in one place as the phrenologists do. Our various memories are scattered over the brain in different regions, being distributed at the time of the perception of the sensation remembered in accordance with the anatomical connection of the percipient organ. It is, finally, a mistake to speak of a good memory or a bad memory."
"Nearly all the greatest thinkers from the beginning of philosophy have grappled with the subject, yet we are inclined to believe that, from the first, no subject has been more profoundly misunderstood. Whatever the standpoint, whether philosophical or physiological, upon one point only, perhaps, has there always been substantially universal agreement; namely, that pleasure and pain are in some way direct and complementary expressions of the general welfare of the individual. From Plato and Aristotle down through Descartes, Leibnitz, Hobbes, the idea, at base, has ever been the same: The experience, the judgment, the attainment of a perfect or imperfect life; the perfect or imperfect exercise of a faculty; the furtherance or hindrance of some activity; the rise or fall of some vital function, force, or energy. Everywhere pleasure and pain have been looked upon as complementary terms of a single phenomenon, and as the very essence of expression of the rise and fall of our inmost existence..."
"All beings are exposed to more or less frequent dangers, and are constantly struggling to defend their lives. They have to dread the inclemency of the seasons, and must perish if they fail to find a sufficiency of food; the herbivorous are destined to become a prey to the carnivorous, and, when there seems no need of a victim, deadly battles occur for the possession of a place or the conquest of a prize. Destruction is a natural law; but this destruction is restrained within certain limits: notwithstanding the perils that incessantly threaten the existence of all creatures, everything works actively to secure the maintenance of races. That instinct of preservation which goads individuals to fly from danger and seek the satisfaction of their material wants, allows many to escape accidents. If the causes of violent death vary within the widest range among animal species, they are always proportioned to the causes that protect against it. Fecundity, restricted among powerful animals, and limited also in those that have only the attacks of the strongest to fear, is prodigious among the weakest that are doomed to yield a multitude of victims. Thus the complete disappearance of any species is only possible under wholly exceptional conditions..."
This book deals with the History of Primitive and Celebrated Clocks. "The old Romans used this water-clock; but, when their empire was destroyed, all Western Europe forgot the existence of such a thing. In the year 807 A. D., the Caliph of Bagdad, Haroun-al-Raschid, sent to Charlemagne a water-clock of this kind. Soon after we learn that, instead of the running water, a weight was used for turning the wheel. But whether the clock was run by water or by a weight it was always a hard matter to have the hours of the same length. The escapement, which we shall speak of presently, made one hour more nearly the length of every other hour. The machine for telling the hours was, for many years, called the horologe, or "hour-teller." The word "clock" was applied only to the bell that struck the hours. It sounds very much like the Saxon, French, and German words that mean "bell." About nine hundred Years ago horologes were brought into England by the Catholic clergy. Very large horologes were built into the towers at Canterbury Cathedral, in 1292; at Westminster, in 1290; at Exeter Cathedral, in 1317-the striking part of which is still in use; at the cathedrals of Wells and Peterborough; and at St. Albans Abbey in 1326. A smaller horologe was made for Charles V of France in 1370, by a German named Vick. Horologes, or clocks, would have remained in this imperfect state until today if it had not been for the invention of the pendulum, which means "something that swings." You all remember the story of Galileo, who, when a boy, watched the chandelier as it swung to and fro in the cathedral at Florence..."
Comme l'ont dit Platon et Aristote, il n'y a probablement chez l'homme ni plaisir ni déplaisir absolument pur : les deux sentiments se trouvent mélangés à doses inégales par l'art subtil de la nature, et l'impression définitive dans notre conscience est une résultante où l'emporte un des éléments. Cette complexité de toute émotion pourrait se déduire des deux conceptions dominantes de la physiologie moderne. La première de ces conceptions, c'est que notre corps est en réalité une société de cellules qui ont chacune leur activité propre et luttent entre elles pour la vie. « La jouissance est un plaisir éprouvé par les sens, et ce qui les flatte est dit agréable. La douleur est le dé¬plaisir éprouvé par les sens, et ce qui la produit est dit désagréable. - Ces deux choses ne sont pas entre elles comme gain et absence de gain (+ et 0), mais comme profit et perte (+ et - ); c'est-à-dire qu'il y a de l'un à l'autre non pas simple opposition, mais aussi contrariété. - Les expressions : ce qui plaît ou déplaît et ce qui est contraire, l'indifférent, sont trop larges ; elles peuvent convenir également à l'intellectuel, où il n'y a cependant ni jouissance, ni douleur. On peut encore expliquer ces sentiments par l'effet qu'occasionne notre état sur l'âme. Ce qui me porte immédiatement (par les sens) à délaisser ma situation (à en sortir), m'est désagréable, me fait souffrir ; ce qui me porte à la garder (à y rester), m'est agréable, - il me fait jouir...»
This book presents the Origin and Development of American Football. Football, although indefinitely known as a sport to Greek and Roman antiquity, did not come into existence as a school or college game until the eighteenth century. During the three or four centuries prior to this time football, in a vague way, figured in English inter-town and county contests. It first appeared as a distinct school game in the early part of the eighteenth century, but at this time was in more or less disfavor on account of the strict Puritanism of the period.It is to the English schoolboy that the game of football really owes its origin. During the middle of the nineteenth century there was an athletic revival throughout England and football became the favorite pastime of the winter months in such schools as Rugby, Eton, Harrow, Charterhouse and others. The game came to its present important position through a gradual evolutionary process in which both a standard of play and of rule were developed together. In the growth of the two principal forms of modern play, "Association" and "Rugby", the size of the particular school ground was the determining factor. In 1850 the only school playground in England large enough to permit the running and tackling game was connected with Rugby. At Harrow, kicking and fair catching were allowed. A game was developed at Eton peculiar to this school and called the "wall game", while at other schools the play consisted almost entirely of so called "dribbling", in which carrying the ball and tackling were unknown...
The newspaper has a history; but it has, likewise, a natural history. The press, as it exists, is not, as our moralists sometimes seem to assume, the willful product of any little group of living men. On the contrary, it is the outcome of an historic process in which many individuals participated without foreseeing what the ultimate product of their labors was to be. The newspaper, like the modern city, is not wholly a rational product. No one sought to make it just what it is. In spite of all the efforts of individual men and generations of men to control it and to make it something after their own heart, it has continued to grow and change in its own incalculable ways.The type of newspaper that exists is the type that has survived under the conditions of modern life. The men who may be said to have made the modern newspaper-James Gordon Bennett, Charles A. Dana, Joseph Pulitzer, and William Randolph Hearst-are the men who discovered the kind of paper that men and women would read and had the courage to publish it. The natural history of the press is a history of a surviving species. It is one of the most characteristic fruits of enlightenment, due to the extension of the opportunities of education to the masses of the population. The modern newspaper is a product of city life; it is no longer merely an organ of propaganda and opinion, but a form of popular literature. The journal of opinion was largely a business man's newspaper. The so-called independent press added to its public the so-called artisan class. The yellow press was created mainly to capture immigrants, and women. It was this increase of circulation that made the newspaper-formerly a subsidized organ of the parties an independent business enterprise, an envelope and carrier for advertising.
This book presents the general history of Venezuela, from its conquest, settlement and colonial period to the modern days; and the natural features of the country. Venezuela is a republic of South America, facing the Caribbean sea. "On his third voyage in 1498 Columbus sighted the Venezuelan coast just south of the Windward Islands. A year later, Alonso de Ojeda saw the mainland at about the same place and skirted the coast for four hundred miles west without finding any important break in a line of mountains which rose almost directly from the sea to a height of three to nine thousand feet, covered to their very tops with luxuriant vegetation. But there was no such barrier as that made by the main Andes on the Pacific; the passes were only half a mile instead of nearly three miles high; the slopes were not dry and desolate as in Peru, or covered with a tangled mass of forest as in Pacific Columbia and Ecuador. Just beyond the harbour where Puerto Cabello now stands, the coast-line turned abruptly to the north-west, leaving the mountains farther inland, but the intervening plain was swampy and uninviting. Still following west, Ojeda rounded Cape San Roman and turned south into the great Gulf of Maracaibo. There he saw Indian villages of houses built on piles near the shallow shores, and he called the place Venezuela-"little Venice,"-a name shortly extended to the whole coast from the mouth of the Orinoco west to the forbidding and uninhabitable peninsula of Goajira, which forms the western promontory of the Gulf of Maracaibo..."
The territory of the present State of Arizona is embraced within 31° 20´ and 37° north latitude and between 109° 02´ and 114° 45´ west longitude. It covers an area of 113,956 square miles, of which 146 miles are water surface. The part north of the Gila River came into the possession of the United States under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and that south of the Gila as a part of the Gadsden Purchase of 1854. Arizona was at first included in the Territory of New Mexico, and the census of 1860 gives to Arizona County, N. Mex., a total of 1,681 families, representing 6,482 free individuals... Prior to the American occupation all the inhabitants of this region were Mexicans and Indians; and all the educational institutions, general in character and purpose, proposed in the past for this country by the Spanish Government had failed of realization. Thus early as 1777-1789 the founding, of a missionary college, perhaps at El Paso, was ordered by the King and the Pope, but nothing was accomplished. About the same time industrial education was proposed as a remedy for the ills of the country, but this, too, came to naught, and while educational reforms were demanded by Pedro Bautista Pino, the New Mexican representative in the Spanish Cortes of 1812, his efforts were without results...
Dans quelles circonstances l'Armée du Salut a-t-elle pris naissance ? Quel est son principe et son fonctionnement ? Ce livre expose la genèse, l'organisation et l'expansion mondiale de l'Armée du Salut.
"Le réveil religieux d'Oxford qui avait ramené dans le giron de l'Église catholique romaine des milliers d'Anglais, animés de tendances mystiques et en quête d'une forte direction morale, était à peu près éteint. A l'autre bout du monde pensant, les doctrines positivistes importées par J. Stuart Millet le déterminisme de Darwin étaient répandus dans la bourgeoisie. Entre ces deux extrêmes, le rationalisme religieux avait ranimé l'esprit d'examen et stimulé les études théologiques dans la Broad Church. Mais ces mouvements ne s'adressaient guère qu'à l'élite cultivée de la société ; la grande majorité des étudiants se désintéressait des questions religieuses ; le nombre des vocations sacerdotales diminuait et la masse ouvrière gisait dans un état de torpeur religieuse et de corruption morale désolantes. Des milliers d'âmes végétaient ainsi sans foi et sans direction. Nulle part, cet état du peuple, vivant « en marge » des églises, n'était plus fréquent que dans les quartiers de l'Est de Londres... L'Armée du Salut ne fait aucune différence entre hommes et femmes, quant au rang, à l'autorité et aux devoirs ; elle ouvre l'accès des plus hauts emplois aux uns comme aux autres. Le but de l'institution est d'atteindre les esclaves du péché et, non seulement de les délivrer et d'en faire des enfants de Dieu, mais encore de faire de chacune de ces recrues des conquérants d'âmes..."
Of all the island groups in the outer Pacific none surpass the Fijis in their rare combination of beautiful scenery and interesting natives. The islands are upon the opposite side of the world from England, for the meridian of 180° passes through the centre of the group crossing the island of Taviuni... That dauntless old rover, Abel Jansen Tasman, discovered them in 1643 on his way from Tonga in the Heemskirk and Zeehaan and named them "Prince William's Islands" and "Heemskirk's Shoals." After this, they were all but forgotten until July 2, 1774, when Captain James Cook sighted the small island of Vatoa in the extreme southeastern end of the group. The natives fled into the forest upon the approach of his boat, and he contented himself by leaving a knife, some medals and nails in a conspicuous place. Finding many sea-turtles in the region, he named his land-fall "Turtle Island," and then departed from the Fijis never to return.
This book treats of the Civil War in America and its Place in History.
"For many years before the outbreak of the Civil War the United States had become an object of anxiety or of envy to many, of wonder and curiosity to all mankind. Their prosperity, attached by a thousand beneficent links to the prosperity of England, seemed even more splendid and more secure. The rapid growth of their population united the marvels of Lancashire with the marvels of Australia; it created vast cities, and peopled an enormous territory with their overflow. The accumulation of riches was as great as in Europe, whilst they were diffused so much more generally that poverty as well as idleness was all but unknown. All the sources of agricultural and of mineral wealth enjoyed by the old world were tenfold multiplied in the new, and were exempt from the drain of those political causes which restrain commercial enterprise, and expend on objects that yield no adequate return the resources of the people..."
The manuscript of the following pages has been handed to me with the request that I would revise it for publication, or weave its facts into a story which should show the fitness of the Southern black for the exercise of the right of suffrage.
The narrative is a plain and unpretending account of the life of a man whose own right arm-to use his own expression-won his rights as a freeman. It is written with the utmost simplicity, and has about it the verisimilitude which belongs to truth, and to truth only when told by one who has been a doer of the deeds and an actor in the scenes which he describes. It has the further rare merit of being written by one of the "despised race"; for none but a negro can fully and correctly depict negro life and character.
General Thomas-a Southern man, and a friend of the Southern negro-was once in conversation with a gentleman who has attained some reputation as a delineator of the black man, when a long, lean, "poor white man," then a scout in the Union army, approached the latter, and, giving his shoulder a familiar slap, accosted him with,-
"How are you, ole feller?"
The gentleman turned about, and forgetting, in his joy at meeting an old friend, the presence of this most dignified of our military men, responded to the salutation of the scout in an equally familiar and boisterous manner. General Thomas "smiled wickedly," and quietly remarked,-
"You seem to know each other."
"Know him!" exclaimed the scout. "Why, Gin'ral, I ha'n't seed him fur fourteen year; but I sh'u'd know him, ef his face war as black as it war one night when we went ter a nigger shindy tergether!"
The gentleman colored up to the roots of his hair, and stammered out,-
"That was in my boy days, General, when I was sowing my wild oats."
"Don't apologize, Sir," answered the General, "don't apologize; for I see that to your youthful habit of going to negro shindies we owe your truthful pictures of negro life."
And the General was right. Every man and woman who has essayed to depict the slave character has miserably failed, unless inoculated with the genuine spirit of the negro; and even those who have succeeded best have done only moderately well, because they have not had the negro nature. It is reserved to some black Shakspeare or Dickens to lay open the wonderful humor, pathos, poetry, and power which slumber in the negro's soul, and which now and then flash out like the fire from a thunder-cloud.
I do not mean to say that this black prophet has come in this narrative...
"We have known many fine geniuses with that imperfection that they cannot do anything useful, not so much as write one clean sentence: 'T is worse, and tragic, that no man is fit for society who has fine traits. At a distance, he is admired; but bring him hand to hand, he is a cripple. One protects himself by solitude, and one by courtesy, and one by an acid, worldly manner,-each concealing how he can the thinness of his skin and his incapacity for strict association. But there is no remedy that can reach the heart of the disease, but either habits of self-reliance that should go in practice to making the man independent of the human race, or else a religion of love. Now he hardly seems entitled to marry; for how can he protect a woman, who cannot protect himself?..."
It is now something more than a century since the general division of psychic phenomena into intellect, feeling and will, first came into repute, but still some psychologists of note do not agree to this fundamental classification, but would unite feeling and will in a single order. As to the subdivisions of feeling and will we are confessedly wholly at sea. In intellect it is only on the lower side, sensation and perception, that anything of great scientific value has been accomplished; and even now it cannot be said that the classes of sensation have been marked off with perfect certainty. In the higher range of intellect psychology can do scarcely more than accept some ready-made divisions from common observation and logic. And if so little has been settled in the comparatively simple work of a descriptive classification of the facts of mind, we may be assured that still less has been accomplished toward a scientific consensus for the laws of mind. Weber's law alone seems to stand on any secure basis of experiment, but its range and meaning are still far from being determined. Even the laws of the association of ideas are still the subjects of endless controversy. Also in method there is manifestly the greatest disagreement. The physiological and introspective schools each magnify their own methods, sometimes so far as to discredit all others. Physiological method has won for itself a certain standing, indeed, but just what are its limitations is still far from being settled...
