108 



DISCOVERY 



the important dates of the year, until its reform was taken 

 in hand by Julius Caesar. The Julian calendar differed 

 from its predecessor in that, instead of attempting to 

 reconcile the lunar months with a solar year, it abandoned 

 the lunar naonths and fixed the months without reference 

 to the phases of the moon. The year was made to consist 

 of 365 J days with an intercalation every four years of one 

 day. The 365 J- days were divided up into twelve monthly 

 periods, each consisting of 30 or 31 days, excepting in the 

 case of February. 



The Julian year, like the Egyptian year, being 11 

 minutes and 14 seconds longer than the natural year, 

 gave rise to a discrepancy, chiefly noticed in connection 

 with Easter, which, when Gregory became Pope in 1572, 

 aggregated ten days. By the Bull of 1582, ten days were 

 dropped from the calendar, and it was provided that out 

 of every four centurial years only those exactly divisible 

 by 400, such as 1600, should be retained as leap years. 

 This reform was adopted at different times by different 

 countries. In this country it did not come into force until 

 1752, by which time the discrepancy had increased to 

 II days, the reform giving rise to the popular cry of, " Give 

 us back our eleven days." The Gregorian calendar has 

 only recently been adopted in those countries which belong 

 to the Greek Church. 



There are a number of important points raised by Mr. 

 Philip's historical survey which invite consideration, did 

 space allow. One point of great interest is the week, and 

 the relation of the Jewish week of seven days to the week 

 used by the Nordic peoples, which clearly was a five-day 

 week. Mr. Philip does not enter into the question of the 

 origin of this arbitrary division of time. While the Jewish 

 week is based upon the recurrence of the rest day, the 

 origin of the Nordic five-day week is obscure. Among 

 primitive peoples the week, which in West Africa, for 

 instance, consists of four or five days, is often based upon 

 the recurrence of a market. 



The chief defects in our calendar to which Mr. Philip 

 points are due to the constant fluctuation in the relation 

 between the month-day and the week-day. As a remedy 

 he suggests the transfer of one day from August to 

 February. In order to establish a perpetual correspon- 

 dence between month-day and week-day, the odd day 

 annually and the odd day in leap year, it is suggested, 

 should be excluded from numeration as days of the week. 

 Mr. Philip's suggestion has the meiit of simplicity and 

 entails a minimum of dislocation. In so far it appears 

 less objectionable than many of the other proposals which 

 have been brought forward, such as the suggestion of a 

 year of 13 months of 28 days each. 



Mr. Reginald Poole's communication to the British 

 Academy deals with a difficulty, of the greatest practical 

 importance to historians, arising out of methods of reckon- 

 ing the beginning of the year under different systems. 

 Under the Julian calendar the year began on January i, 

 but before the institution of the Julian system, the Roman 

 year began on March i. The Franks also began their 

 year on March i, and Mr. Poole thinks it possible that this 

 may have been connected with Roman military service, 



for which purpose the use of the older date was retained. 

 The established usage in Western Europe up to the eleventh 

 century was that the year began at Christmas, except in 

 Spain, where up till the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 

 the year began on January 1. Generally, however, 

 January i was regarded with aversion on account of its 

 pagan associations. At about the eleventh and twelfth 

 centuries Christmas began to be superseded by March 25, 

 and this continued to be the official mode of reckoning 

 in this country down to 1752. In addition, there was the 

 Byzantine year, which began on September i, the year 

 reckoned from the Annunciation, nine months before 

 Christmas, known as the calculus Pisanus, and finally a 

 system which reckoned the year as from Easter. As a 

 consequence, and owing to the fact that chroniclers, 

 assuming that their system of dating is familiar to their 

 readers, do not make clear what method has been followed, 

 it is often extremely difficult to decide in which of two 

 years an event is to be placed. Mr. Poole, by sifting the 

 evidence for the chronological order of the appearance of 

 the various systems and their geographical distribution, has 

 done much to elucidate a very difficult problem, and his 

 results will be of the highest value to the student and the 

 historian. 



E. N. Fallaize. 



[For further reading on this subject see article on The 

 Roman Calendar by Prof. W. R. Halliday, Discovery, 

 Vol. II, No. 21, p. 238.— Ed.] 



SOME BOOKS ON PSYCHOLOGY 



The Psychology of Society. By Morris Ginsberg, M.A. 

 (Methuen & Co., Ltd., 55.) 



The study of man's behaviour as the member of a com- 

 munity is almost as old as civilisation, but the subject 

 has been approached almost exclusively in the light of 

 preconceived theories of human conduct, and only of 

 recent years has the attempt been made to discover " the 

 general principles of group life and their application to 

 particular kinds and examples of groups," and thereby 

 to place the study of social psychology on a scientific 

 basis. 



But in a new science, especially where the data are 

 difficult to observe and impo.ssible to measure, the explana- 

 tory theories are bound to be tentative, and to some 

 extent divergent, so that Mr. Ginsberg's book serves a 

 useful purpose in reviewing and submitting them to 

 detailed criticism. The author finds that for the most 

 part the theories of social psychology are inadequate to 

 the complexity of the subject, a finding that may be 

 stimulating to the student ot specialist, but likely to 

 prove discouraging to the general reader, for whom, how- 

 ever, the book is probably not designed, since it pre- 

 supposes a considerable acquaintance with contemporary 

 psychology. 



Prof. MacDougall's theory of instincts, in which the 

 basis of all human activity is sought for in a group of 

 primitive instincts common to man and the higher 

 animals, is criticised especially for its inadequacy to 

 explain satisfactorily the disinterested motives of conduct. 



