322 Report S.A.A. Advancemjjnt of Science. 



The later grammatical conception has been widened i)ito the ideas of 

 manner and degree. 



The fifth question deals with the ideas of place, and primarily 

 expresses itself in the three interrogatives whence, where, and whitlier. 

 The interrogative " how far" comes later. 



The pre-eminence of the animal lies largely in its power of loco- 

 motion. The plant is rooted to the ground, but the animal at will 

 can change its habitat. Man has a deeply rooted instinct both for 

 travel and for home. And primitive )nan has a keen eye for locality 

 — a faculty civilisation tends to destroy. 



Liberty of movement bulks largely in man's subconscious mind. 

 If he has it, he is free ; when it is curtailed, he feels caged and is 

 restless and uneasy. It is a verj' considei-able hardsiiip to children to 

 be shut up in school. If they are to be happy, frequent intervals 

 should be given them to exercise their legs. 



From his power of locomotion spring man's quantitative icleas of 

 .space. Just as the idea of device comes mainly through the use of the 

 hand, so the first definite knowledge of tiie properties of space has 

 been developed through the use of the legs. For a man is, as it were, 

 a natural pair of compasses. His pace is his unit of length. Each 

 journey in his early days is a lesson in practical geometry. There has 

 been much discussion as to whence man got his geometrical axioms. 

 Surely some of them were gathered in the first instance aiahulaudo. 



The question with regard to the time of the action — the when 

 and how long of it — forms our sixth category. There is a very 

 intimate connection between our thoughts of time and our thoughts 

 of motion. Perhaps our first idea of abstract time was gathered 

 from the deep-seated feeling of the rliythmic movement of our life. 

 The beating of the heart, with its regular periodic and bai-ely per- 

 ceptible movement, may be the origin of our idea of the ceaseless 

 even steady passing of time. From this perception of the passing of 

 time, however obtained, we get the ideas of past, present and future ; 

 and so closely do we associate the thought of time and of action that 

 the form of the verb, tlie tense, iiidicat^s also the time. 



The ordinary definite periods of time, as conceived by primitive 

 jnankind were, no doubt, night anrl day, evening and morning, the 

 year and its seasons, his own life with its successive ciges of childhoo«J, 

 youth and manhood. 



We have now completed our study of the funtlamental teniis of 

 the simple action sentence ; and an important and interesting fact 

 calls for attention. If this scheme of primiti\e logical relationships, as 

 <letailed above, be examined critically, it will be tV)und to coiiicide 

 almost exactly with the original Indo-Germanic case system. Thus 

 the nominative expresses the doer or agent; the accusative, the person 

 on whom the action is done ; the instrumental, the means with which 

 it is done; the ablative, the place whence; the locative, the place where. 

 By an easily felt analogy the accusative expresses the place whither 

 ajid also the space how far (for powers «»f locomotion overcome the 

 resistance of space an<i distance). By anotlier intimat<'ly felt analogy, 



