69J 



SOWING. 



SPACE AND TIME, 



GOO 



by a government. They include the legislative power, the executive 

 power, the power of making privilegia [LAW ; LEGISLATION], the 

 power of declaring peace and war, and of concluding treaties with 

 foreign states, the power of making contracts with private individuals, 

 and the power of instituting inquiries. 



Sovereign power abstractedly is unlimited by any legal check or 

 control. The securities for its beneficial exercise are derived exclu- 

 sively from the balance of interests and the influence of public opinion. 



Sovereign or supreme governments are divided into MONARCHIES 

 and REPUBLICS ; and REPUBLICS are divided into ARISTOCRACIES and 

 DEMOCRACIES. 



It is commonly, but erroneously, thought that the sovereignty 

 resides in every person who bears the name of king ; in other words, 

 that every king is a monarch. Accordingly those kingdoms in which 

 the king is not strictly a monarch are called " limited monarchies ; " 

 and the king is supposed to be a sovereign whose power is checked or 

 controlled by certain popular bodies ; whereas, in truth, the sovereignty 

 is divided between the king and the popular body, and the former 

 does not possess the entire sovereignty. This subject is further 

 explained in KINO, MONARCHY, and ROYALTY. 



The subject of sovereignty is well explained in Mr. Austin's ' Pro- 

 vince of Jurisprudence determined.' The received doctrines upon the 

 subject will likewise be found in the treatises on international law. 

 The ' Leviathan ' of Hobbes contains a view of the nature of sove- 

 reignty, which has been often misunderstood and misrepresented by 

 later writers. 



SOWING AND SOWING-MACHINES. The sowing of the seed 

 has always been looked upon as one of the most important operations 

 of husbandry. Much of the success of the future crops depends on 

 the time and the mode in which the seed is committed to the earth. 

 After the land has been well prepared by judicious tillage and manuring, 

 many accidents and circumstances may disappoint the hope of the 

 fanner, and the crop may be scanty or fail altogether. The weather 

 and the seasons are not under Inn control, and he must submit to the 

 dispensations of Providence with pious resignation ; but much also 

 depends on his own judgment and skill. If he selects the best seeds, 

 chooses the proper season for sowing them, and has them carefully 

 distributed and properly covered with earth, as their nature requires 

 for the most perfect germination, and thus_ also protects them 

 from the voracity of birds or insects, he will have a much greater 

 prospect of success, under all circumstances, than if he were careless 

 or negligent. 



The most common mode of sowing the seed is by scattering it as 

 evenly as possible over the ploughed surface, as it lies in ridges from 

 the plough. The harrows follow, and crumbling down the ridges, 

 cover the seed which has fallen in the hollows between them. It 

 requires an experienced sower to scatter the exact quantity over a 

 given surface, without crowding the seed in one spot, and allowing 

 too great intervals in another. Hence the farmer who does not him- 

 self sow the seed, invariably chooses the most experienced and skilful 

 labourer to perform this work. Notwithstanding every care and 

 attention on the part of the farmer or master, the labourer will often 

 relax and become careless, and the result appears only when it is too 

 late to remedy it. This has given rise to the various attempts which 

 have been made to invent machines for sowing the seed, such as should 

 insure perfect regularity. Of some of these we will now give a short 

 account. 



One of the simplest of these machines consisted in a hollow cylinder, 

 with one or more rows of holes in a line parallel to the axis. These 

 holes can be stopped in part if required. The seed is put into the 

 cylinder, the length of which is equal to the width of the land, or 

 stitch, which it is desired to sow at a time. By shaking this when 

 held horizontally and at right angles to the path of the sower, the seed 

 is scattered with considerable regularity : one inconvenience of this 

 instrument is that it requires to be filled frequently, and that much 

 still depends on the attention of the operator. Accordingly it was 

 very soon laid by. The idea, however, was followed up and improved 

 upon in the loving-barrow, an instrument still extensively used for 

 sowing grass-seeds. It consists of a wooden trough placed on the 

 frame of a light wheelbarrow. An iron spindle, furnished with circular 

 brushes at regular intervals, runs the whole length of the trough, and 

 is turned by means of simple machinery connected with tho wheel. 

 Opposite each brush is a brass plate, with holes of different sizes, which 

 can be partly closed by means of a circular slide. According to the 

 size of the seed to be sown and the quantity to be scattered, the holes 

 are opened or shut. The seed is put into the trough, which has a cover 

 or lid ; and by merely wheeling the barrow in a straight line, a breadth 

 is sown equal to the length of the trough, usually 12 or 15 feet. But 

 this machine cannot conveniently be used in windy weather, which 

 disperses the seeds irregularly ; and it is very little superior to sowing 

 by the hand, except in the case of small seeds, which cannot so well be 

 spread evenly by the hand. 



The drill husbandry has suggested other more complicated machines, 

 of which some account will be found in the article DBILL. The prin- 

 ciple of these in to deliver the seed by means of funnels, each corre- 

 sponding to a small furrow made by a coulter placed immediately before 

 the funnel ; and some of these machines perform the work very 

 regularly and satisfactorily. As the inequalities of the ground require 



ARTS ASD SCI. DIV. VOL. TIL 



2 qualities of soy. Japanese soy is much esteemed in China 

 of the superior manner in which it is made. Soy is only 



that the coulters should move up or down, to allow for these in- 

 equalities, the seed cannot be accurately deposited at a given depth ; 

 and some further improvement in the mode of drilling Is yet desirable, 

 though much has been effected. The patent lever-drill in common 

 use is very imperfect in its work, and the remedy lies in the greater 

 attention to the preparation of the surface. When this is effected, the 

 levers may be set aside, and a much simpler drill, such as was used at 

 first, may replace it. The object is to make furrows of equal depth in 

 which to deposit the seed, and to cover this uniformly. The land 

 must consequently be more carefully prepared by repeated harrowing 

 and rolling, till the surface resembles the seed-beds in a garden. A 

 simple drill, which makes equidistant furrows at a given depth, in 

 which the seed drops regularly, will then do better work than a more 

 complicated machine ; but if still greater accuracy and perfection are 

 desired, the dibble must be had recourse to. No one will deny that 

 seed deposited by means of a dibble is distributed more equally and 

 covered with a more equal depth of soil than by any other means, and 

 that there is a great economy of seed in this mode of sowing ; but the 

 slowness of the operation, and the number of hands it would require 

 to dibble all the seed on a large farm, have prevented its being very 

 generally adopted. [ARABLE LAND.] Many attempts have been made 

 to invent machines to imitate the work done by hand in dibbliug, but 

 hitherto with no marked success, owing chiefly to the difficulty of 

 clearing the dibbles from the adhering soil, and making a clean hole, 

 and also of letting the seed fall exactly in the dibble-holes. 



SOY, is obtained from the Soja hispida, or Soja japonica [SoJA, in 

 NAT. HIST. DIV.] From the seeds of this leguminous plant, the 

 Japanese prepare the sauce termed Sooja, which has been corrupted 

 into Soy. The beans are boiled until the water is nearly evaporated, 

 and they begin to burn ; when they are taken from the fire, and 

 placed in large wide-mouthed jars, exposed to the sun and air ; 

 water and a certain proportion of molasses or very brown sugar are 

 added. These jars are stirred well every day, until the liquor and 

 beans are completely mixed and fermented; the material is then 

 strained, salted, and boiled, and skimmed until clarified. There are 

 two or three c 

 on account of 

 sparingly used as a sauce in this country. 



SOYMIDA. [SOYMIDA, in NAT. HIST. DIV.] 



SPACE AND TIME (Mathematics). We do not here propose to 

 enter into any discussion of the doctrines of psychologists as to the 

 idea of space, or as to whether it be innate or acquired. Space and time 

 are essential to thought, and are, come by the notions how we may, 

 necessary attendants on our own consciousness of existence. It is 

 possible for imagination to picture the annihilation of all things, itself 

 included, or to fancy that it can form such a picture, which is the same 

 thing ; but what then would remain (in the thoughts) ? Infinitely 

 extended empty space, lasting through infinitely extended time. Exist- 

 ence of space and successions of existence we may defy the speculator 

 to deprive himself of for one moment. The greatest proof we have of 

 our ignorance of the Creator of all things is the absolute impossibility 

 which we find of making the necessity of his existence as real a con- 

 ception of our minds as that of space or time. The most religious man 

 will read with pleasure a work on natural theology tending to prove 

 that there must be a God ; but who would bear ten pages of a serious 

 attempt to demonstrate the existence of space and time ? 



In these ideas we have the foundation of the mathematical sciences ; 

 for from space follows form, which is the conception of the manner in 

 which one part of space is separated from the rest, and from the investi- 

 gation of forms arises geometry. Again, time is only apprehended by 

 succession of events or ideas, and succession or repetition gives the 

 notion of numberiny. And though collection is sometimes stated to be 

 the leading idea in number, yet it may be asserted that number in the 

 last sense is not the object of arithmetic, except as furnishing the sub- 

 ject of numbering. The leading phrases of arithmetic suggest the idea 

 of time, and are derived from it. How often is 2 contained in 12 ? 

 Six times. The 2 presented to the thoughts at six different times is 

 the mode in which the collection of 12 is counted by twos. 



From both space and time we get the notion of direction, but in very 

 different manners. The extremities of a portion of length give the idea of 

 a point of space, a fundamental notion of an indivisible index of com- 

 mencement or termination. The extremities of time give the notion of 

 points of time, or indivisible portions of duration. No point of space con- 

 tains any space; no point of time lasts any time. If we choose a point of 

 space or a point of time, we can in our thoughts set out from the former 

 in an infinite number of different ways ; from the latter, in only two. 

 This is the law of thought, upon which it is useless to speculate ; but 

 it is followed by important consequences. So long as algebra, the 

 science of reasoning by symbols, was founded only on notions of arith- 

 metic or succession, its ideas were not competent to furnish explanation 

 to all the results of its mechanical processes. As soon as the same 

 rules were transferred to ideas of space, or made to spring from geo- 

 metrical explanations, the mysteries of that science gradually vanished. 



From space and time, also, we get the idea of infinity, a subject 

 which has been already treated [INFINITE] ; but only in such a point 

 of view as would meet the objections of those who cannot reason clearly 

 on absolute infinity. That space and time are unbounded, is the simple 

 consequence of their being necessary to our notion of the existence of 



