La fin du viiie siècle de notre ère a vu se réaliser dans l'Europe Occidentale un état de choses sans précédent. Pour la première fois depuis l'aurore des temps historiques, le foyer, non seulement du mouvement politique, mais du mouvement général de la civilisation, s'y est transporté du bassin de la Méditerranée dans celui de la mer du Nord. Le pivot de l'Empire romain était en Italie ; celui de l'Empire carolingien est situé dans la région comprise entre le Rhin et la Seine...
De tout ce qu'il était alors naturel et rationnel de prévoir, rien ne s'est réalisé. Brusquement, un événement imprévu s'est jeté au travers du courant de l'histoire, a interrompu la série de ses causes et de ses conséquences, l'a fait en quelque sorte refluer sur soi-même, et, par ses répercussions inattendues, a coupé court à la tradition.
L'invasion musulmane à laquelle, du vivant même de Mahomet (571-632), personne n'avait pu ni songer ni se préparer, s'est abattue sur l'Univers avec la force élémentaire d'un cataclysme cosmique. Il ne lui a pas fallu beaucoup plus de cinquante ans pour s'étendre de la mer de Chine à l'océan Atlantique. Rien ne résiste devant elle. Du premier choc, elle renverse l'Empire perse (637-644) ; elle enlève successivement à l'Empire byzantin la Syrie (634-636), l'Égypte (640-642), l'Afrique (698), l'Espagne (711), la Corse, la Sardaigne, les îles Baléares, l'Apulie et la Calabre. Sa marche envahissante ne cessera qu'au commencement du viiie siècle...
I understand the task of sociology to be description and determination of the historico-psychological origin of those forms in which interactions take place between human beings. The totality of these interactions, springing from the most diverse impulses, directed toward the most diverse objects, and aiming at the most diverse ends, constitutes "society." Those different contents in connection with which the forms of interaction manifest themselves are the subject-matter of special sciences. These contents attain the character of social facts by virtue of occurring in this particular form in the interactions of men. We must accordingly distinguish two senses of the term "society:" first, the broader sense, in which the term includes the sum of all the individuals concerned in reciprocal relations, together with all the interests which unite these interacting persons; second, a narrower sense, in which the term designates the society or the associating as such, that is the interaction itself which constitutes the bond of association, in abstraction from its material content, the subject-matter of sociology as the doctrine of society sensu strict...
The Fiji is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean that gained its independence in 1970. This former British colony consisting of an archipelago, the most important in Polynesia, lies between 15° and 20° South.
The first western contact with Fiji was made in 1643 when Captain Abel Tasman entered Fijian waters and sighted several islands and reefs without realizing the nature of his discovery. Over a hundred years later, Captain Cook made a second contact by stopping at one of the southern Lau Islands. Real knowledge of the area began in 1792 when Captain Bligh sailed through the archipelago from the southeast to the northwest, following the famous mutiny of the Bounty. Bligh made an attempt to land, was attacked by natives, and continued through the islands with no more landings. He did, however, make a record of most of the islands he passed.
In the nineteenth century, commercial contacts began in the form of sandalwood trade. This profitable commodity brought Europeans and Americans first to the Sandalwood Coast on the west side of Vanua Levu. During this period the first systematic survey of Fijian waters was made by the U.S. Exploring Expedition in 1840. After little more than a decade the sandalwood supply was depleted to the point where trade virtually ceased.
As a result of this initial commercial contact, which was mainly around western Vanua Levu and eastern Viti Levu, some marked changes were effected in Fijian culture. After the sandalwood traders abandoned Fiji for more profitable fields, a number of deserters and ship-wrecked men remained. These beachcombers, along with firearms that had been introduced by trade or salvaged from wrecks, brought about the first striking alterations. Rival chiefs competed for the acquisition of muskets, gunpowder, and beachcombers. The latter in some instances became attached to royal households as dubious advisors and instructors in the use of guns, powder, and shot. Some of these coaches enjoyed a status resembling that of household pets.
The introduction of firearms changed the native political scene and increased the scope and destructiveness of warfare. For a time the rulers of Mbau in eastern Viti nearly monopolized the supply of muskets and white men. This established their political supremacy over rival leaders. Larger and stronger political and military alliances, some resembling small kingdoms, developed for purposes of defense or aggression. As warfare grew more frequent, new diseases entered the islands and trade in liquor advanced.
After the third decade of the nineteenth century better elements began to enter Fiji and ensuing culture contact was not so consistently deplorable. Bêche-de-mer traders and whalers began to visit the islands for trade goods and supplies. Some began to settle at the east end of Viti Levu. Missionaries came in the 1830's and the Christianization of Fiji began.
Verbal salutations have generally been employed to explain those expressed by gesture and posture. The study of ancient literature and of modern travel has furnished many friendly phrases of anthropologic and ethnic interest. But friendly greetings were common before articulate speech prevailed. Sign-language was then the mode of communication, and gestures connected with the concepts and emotions of men preceded and influenced all historic ceremonials of greeting. So it is judicious to resort to gesture-speech, as still found surviving among some peoples and deaf-mutes, for the explanation of the existing and still more of the oldest known forms of salutation, whether verbal or silent. Undoubtedly some of the verbal forms are of recent origin and are independent of any gesture, and such cases require separate discussion; but there are many known instances where greeting is and long has been expressed by gesture without words, and others in which the words used, conjointly or independently, are but derivations from the older, perhaps disused, gestures.
In this application of sign-language the characteristics of that mode of expression appear with distinctness, noticeable among which are the variety of shades of meaning conveyed by substantially the same gesture and the different modes of exhibiting the same substantive concept. Sign-language is more elastic as well as more comprehensive than oral language. Its abbreviation and symbolism are also so clear that linguistic lore and etymologic guess are not needed for their explanation.
The main divisions of the subject to be now considered are I. Salutations with contact; and, II. Salutations without contact. Under the first division it is convenient to notice successively those directly connected with the sense of: touch; smell; taste - although that is not the probable order of their evolution.
In every century are born men whose lives bring messages of help and hope to those who come after. Such an one was Abraham Lincoln...
Like Moses, Luther, and Washington, Lincoln became a great leader of men only when he surrendered himself to God. His mother, Nancy Hanks, was a Christian woman. Of her he said: "I remember her prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life."
As a boy he read his Bible and attended church when he could. In those days he learned the hymns which were his favorites throughout life, "Am I a Soldier of the Cross?" and "There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood." During his early manhood he drifted into a temporary indifference toward religious matters. Yet even through this time he read and reread his Bible, and his later life showed what it did for him.
The Republic of Liberia has been the scene of a series of experiments absolutely unique in history; experiments from which we are to derive the knowledge upon which we must rely in the solution of the weighty problems connected with the development of a dark continent, and with the civilization of hundreds of millions of the human race.
The history of Liberia may be regarded as a demonstration of the capacity of the race for self-government. Upon the capability of individuals is reflected the highest credit. The opportunities for a rounded-out and fully developed culture afforded by the peculiar conditions of life in the Republic produced a number of men who deserve unqualified admiration. From the earliest days of the colony, when Elijah Johnson upheld the courage of the little band in the midst of hostile swarms of savages, to the steadfast statesmanship of Russwurm and the stately diplomacy of Roberts, there have stood forth individuals of a quality and calibre that fill with surprise those who hold the ordinary opinion of the possibilities of the Negro. The trials of the Republic have afforded a crucial test in which many a character has shown true metal. It is not too much to assert that the very highest type of the race has been the product of Liberia.
The questions still are asked: What is gravity? What are chemical, electrical, and vital forces? What is the essential nature of matter, energy, and life? There is no oracle to answer.
The study of vital phenomena is difficult because of their complex character, and, in the absence of exact analysis, speculative philosophy has for many ages ventured different theories in explanation of their nature. In seeking to give the present status of physiological science on this important question, it is of interest to take a general historical retrospect, in order that the steps of progress may be observed.
So long as man does not bother about what he is or whence he came or whither he is going, the whole thing seems as simple as the verb "to be"; and you may say that the moment he does begin thinking about what he is and whence he came and whither he is going, he gets on to a lot of roads that lead nowhere, and that spread like the fingers of a hand or the sticks of a fan; so that if he pursues two or more of them he soon gets beyond his straddle, and if he pursues only one he gets farther and farther from the rest of all knowledge as he proceeds. You may say that and it will be true. But there is one kind of knowledge a man does get when he thinks about what he is, whence he came and whither he is going, which is this: that it is the only important question he can ask himself...
Of the great many things which man does which he should not do or need not do, if he were wholly explained by the verb "to be," you may count walking. Of course if you build up a long series of guesses as to the steps by which he learnt to walk, and call that an explanation, there is no more to be said...
Walking is the natural recreation for a man who desires not absolutely to suppress his intellect but to turn it out to play for a season. All great men of letters have, therefore, been enthusiastic walkers (exceptions, of course, excepted). Shakespeare, besides being a sportsman, a lawyer, a divine, and so forth, conscientiously observed his own maxim, "Jog on, jog on, the footpath way"; though a full proof of this could only be given in an octavo volume. Anyhow, he divined the connection between walking and a "merry heart"; that is, of course, a cheerful acceptance of our position in the universe founded upon the deepest moral and philosophical principles...
While religious phenomena are in some respects singularly constant, they are, nevertheless, as noted for their diversity. While certain essential elements are common to almost all faiths, on the other hand, every individual faith has something peculiar to itself. It not only differs in some respects from other religions, but, as we trace down its history, we find it varying from itself.
The Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Kelts, Teutons, and Slavs, are shown by philological research to have come originally from a single stock-the primitive Aryan. Their ancestors originally dwelt together in a common home in the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea; and in this ancient time their religion was, probably, one and the same faith, i. e., in substance. Yet how widely diverse have the faiths of these nations come to be, in the four to five thousand years since that ancient home was little by little deserted! How has this diversity come about? What are the forces or influences that differentiate religions?
This book deals with a history of Brazil. The largest republic of South America, and the third largest of the western hemisphere, Brazil, which from a variety of circumstances, has ever been regarded an interesting country, is now become doubly so, from being the present residence of the court of Portugal; and as such, we are induced to give a description of it, which, from the nature and size of this work, must necessarily be a short one. Cabral, in the year 1500, first landed on the coast of Brazil, and immediately gave notice to the court of Lisbon of the discovery he had made. The Portugueze, however, were for a length of time very indifferent to the acquisition of so fine a country. This negligence may in a great degree be attributed to the want of civilized inhabitants, and opulent towns, which the Portugueze had been accustomed to meet with in Africa and Asia; whilst the natives of Brazil consisted of different colonies of savages, dwelling in miserable huts, situated either in forests, on the banks of rivers, or on the sea-coast; and subsisting entirely on the produce of the chace, or on fish caught by themselves. The heat of the climate made cloathing not only unnecessary, but absolutely superfluous. The men and women equally painted their bodies, ornamented their necks and arms with necklaces and bracelets of white bones, and adorned their heads with feathers. The Brazilians are nearly of the same stature as the Europeans, but in general not so robust. Their principal arms consisted of clubs and arrows; their wars were not frequent, but cruel; and dreadful was the fate of those prisoners who fell into their hands without being wounded, since they constantly served as a repast to their merciless conquerors...
I want you to consider the position of the working-classes generally at the present day: not to dwell on the progress that they may (or may not) have made within the last five hundred or the last fifty years; but to consider what their position is, relatively to the other classes of which our society is composed: and in doing so I wish to guard against any exaggeration as to the advantages of the position of the upper and middle-classes on the one side, and the disadvantages of the working-classes on the other; for in truth there is no need for exaggeration; the contrast between the two positions is sufficiently startling when all admissions have been made that can be made. After all, one need not go further than the simple statement of these few words: `The workers are in an inferior position to that of the non-workers'.
When we come to consider that everyone admits nowadays that labour is the source of wealth - or, to put it in another way, that it is a law of nature for man generally, that he must labour in order to live - we must all of us come to the conclusion that this fact, that the workers' standard of livelihood is lower than that of the non-workers, is a startling fact. But startling as it is, it may perhaps help out the imaginations of some of us - at all events of the well-to-do, if I dwell a little on the details of this disgrace, and say plainly what it means...
What is the condition of Society under which we live? Is it satisfactory, is it quite as we should all like it to be? Does it quite please you who are listening to me, so that there is nothing you want to alter in it?
If that is the case, then none of my hearers are poor, and none have any fear of becoming poor; I am speaking to a crowd of rich men who are quite sure that they will always be rich. Well I see that is not quite the case; some of us are poor, some of us are afraid of becoming poor; some of us have to do very unpleasant work; all of us have to work more than we like; and we know of people who are worse off in all these matters than we are: So we do want to alter things if we could: we are not quite contented: if we say we are, we are not speaking truly but say so because we don't `want to argue, or because we want to get something out of rich people whose interest it is that we should be contented.
Well I should wonder if we were contented; for when we look at the present state of Society we find that the majority of people have every reason to wish to be better off than they are, that in point of fact they are living in misery. Let us look at the various conditions of life and see what portion of the whole people has good reason to be pleased with their share of the wealth, ease, good living, in a word, the happiness of this most highly civilized country...
It is true that if all were going smoothly with art, or at all events so smoothly that there were but a few malcontents in the world, you might listen with some pleasure, and perhaps advantage, to the talk of an old hand in the craft concerning ways of work, the snares that beset success, and the shortest road to it, to a tale of workshop receipts and the like: that would be a pleasant talk surely between friends and fellow-workmen; but it seems to me as if it were not for us as yet; nay, maybe we may live long and find no time fit for such restful talk as the cheerful histories of the hopes and fears of our workshops: anyhow to-night I cannot do it, but must once again call the faithful of art to a battle wider and more distracting than that kindly struggle with nature, to which all true craftsmen are born; which is both the building-up and the wearing-away of their lives...
That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people would venture to assert, and yet most civilised people act as if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging both themselves and those that are to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is meant by ART, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than men.
Now I ask you, as I have been asking myself this long while, what proportion of the population in civilised countries has any share at all in that necessity of life?
I say that the answer which must be made to that question justifies my fear that modern civilisation is on the road to trample out all the beauty of life, and to make us less than men.
Now if there should be any here who will say: It was always so; there always was a mass of rough ignorance that knew and cared nothing about art; I answer first, that if that be the case, then it was always wrong, and we, as soon as we have become conscious of that wrong, are bound to set it right if we can...
Socialists no more than other people believe that persons are naturally equal: there are amongst men all varieties of disposition, and desires, and degrees of capacity; nevertheless these differences are inequalities are very much increased by the circumstances amongst which a man lives and by those that surrounded the lives of his parents: and these circumstances are more or less under the control of society, that is of the ordered arrangement of persons among which we live. So I say first that granted that men are born with certain tendencies those tendencies can be developed for good and evil by the conditions of our lives, and those conditions are in our own hands to deal with, taking us nation by nation as a whole. If we are careful to be prudent and wise for ourselves and just towards other people those inequalities which are natural can be used for making life pleasanter and more varied: but if we act stupidly and unjustly they become a source of misery to many, and of degradation to all.
I have admitted that men are not naturally equal, yet all persons must admit that there are certain things which we all need; in that respect we are equal: we all need food, clothes, and shelter, and clearly if we need these things we need them in sufficiency, and of good quality, or else we have not really got them. Since then these needs are common to all, it follows that if anyone is not able to satisfy his needs in these respects there is something wrong somewhere, either with nature, or the man himself, or with the society of which he forms a part and which therefore dictates to him how he shall live...
The intercourse between China and the West began when the Portuguese sent their first trading vessel to her southern ports, of which Canton is the chief, in 1516, and till 1812 it was a purely commercial relation in which the power and civilization of Europe were represented for the most part by the East India Company, seeking only for the advantages of trade and persistently opposing all efforts designed to enlighten the people with whom they dealt. "The attitude of official China during this period was that of supercilious arrogance. China sought no intercourse with outsiders. If they sought trade with her, it was granted as a gracious favor by an officialdom which despised trade and traders too much to attend seriously to the details involved until they became matters threatening international rupture."
The event which began the new order of things was the 'opium war' between Great Britain and China, which, though little to the credit of a righteous nation, nevertheless has served as the origin of what must ultimately be of immeasurable benefit to the more benighted land. By the treaty of peace of 1812 British subjects were permitted to reside at certain important ports along the eastern coast and to trade with whom they pleased. This was soon extended to subjects of the United States and France, and since then the rights of foreigners in China have .steadily increased. There are now over thirty ' treaty ports/ the gateways of Western trade and influence.
American commerce with China began in 1784, the first ship leaving New York on Washington's birthday of that year, and taking fifteen months for the round trip. Our trade with China has been successful from the start, and is greater in importance and value than that of any other nation except Great Britain...
The marvelous structure and sculpture of the Yosemite Valley kindles the imagination of every visitor to this great natural wonder and causes scientist and layman alike to evince the most intense interest in the origin of this mile-deep trough amid the granite waves of the High Sierra. Each pilgrim to this Mountain-Mecca endeavors to satisfy his mind as to the causes of its carving. Everyone who wanders there wonders and guesses at its genesis; but the revelations of its geomorphogeny are far from being satisfactory or complete. Scientists have come and savants have gone, but few have agreed in their conclusions. The scenic grandeur of the Yosemite has sunk deep in the souls of poets and painters, artists and writers; and to the most practical of men, engineers and miners, do its unique features equally appeal... Before discussing the conflicting theories conjectured about the origin of the Yosemite Valley, it will be proper to present the salient features of its surroundings... This book deals with the origin and stories of the Yosemite Valley.
This book deals with the general history of three greats conquerors : Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus and Alexander.
Nebuchadnezzar was the King of Babylon considered as the third great empire of the history.
Cyrus was the first Persian conqueror; founder of the ancient Persian Empire.
Alexander was the king of the Greek Empire; one of the great conquerors of the history.
This book deals with the intelligence of the elephants, their emotions and memory.
The higher mental faculties of the elephant are more advanced in their development than in any other animal, except the dog and monkey...
"The elephant is the largest living land animal. Though numerous forms existed in early geological times, it is represented today by two species only: the African elephant, and the Asiatic elephant.
The African elephant differs from its Asiatic cousin in several particulars. The apparent distinguishing features are the tusks that attain a much greater development and occur in both sexes, while in the Asiatic species the males alone possess them. The African elephant is at least a foot higher than the Asiatic, attaining a maximum height of eleven feet. Its ears are extremely large, covering the shoulder, and in some instances measuring three and a half feet in length by two and a half feet in width, while those of its Indian relative are comparatively small."...
Many decades ago the word Florida was synonymous with mosquitoes, alligators, snakes, and Indians. As a part of this Union, it was at that time considered financially a worthless sand-spit, which had cost our Government fifty million dollars and many lives in the almost fruitless effort to rescue it from the hands of the wily Creeks and Seminoles, who occupied the middle and southern portions of the State.
Florida lies between the degrees of twenty-five and thirty-one north latitude, and eighty to eighty-eight west longitude from Greenwich. The northern boundary being nearly three hundred and fifty miles from east to west, and its length from north to south, nearly four hundred miles. It is in the same latitude as Central Arabia, Northern Hindostan, the Desert of Sahara, the northern portion of Burmah, the southern part of China and Northern Mexico. The average width of the peninsula is about eighty miles, and every part is fanned by either the Trade or Gulf winds, rendering the air delightfully pleasant in midsummer. The most marked geographical feature of the State is the enormous extent of coastline-the Atlantic and Gulf exceeding eleven hundred miles, with numerous large bays, offering great facilities for commercial intercourse. The northern part of the State is hilly and rolling. Midway of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, an elevated ridge extends through Middle and South Florida to Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades, gradually sloping to the Atlantic Ocean on the east and to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico on the west. The elevated lands are mostly pine, interspersed with black-jack, post, and water-oak. At the base and along the water courses, are rich hammock lands bordered with flat and rolling prairie, with the everlasting scrub palmetto everywhere. The southern portion of the State is at this time a vast cattle range, embracing thousands of acres on which a surveyor's chain has never fallen.
All relationships of people to each other rest, as a matter of course, upon the precondition that they know something about each other. The merchant knows that his correspondent wants to buy at the lowest price and to sell at the highest price. The teacher knows that he may credit to the pupil a certain quality and quantity of information. Within each social stratum the individual knows approximately what measure of culture he has to presuppose in each other individual. In all relationships of a personally differentiated sort there develop, as we may affirm with obvious reservations, intensity and shading in the degree in which each unit reveals himself to the other through word and deed. How much error and sheer prejudice may lurk in all this knowing is immaterial. Just as our apprehension of external nature, along with its elusions and its inaccuracies, still attains that degree of truth which is essential for the life and progress of our species, so each knows the other with whom he has to do, in a rough and ready way, to the degree necessary in order that the needed kinds of intercourse may proceed. That we shall know with whom we have to do, is the first precondition of having anything to do with another. The customary reciprocal presentation, in the case of any somewhat protracted conversation, or in the case of contact upon the same social plane, although at first sight an empty form, is an excellent symbol of that reciprocal apprehension which is the presumption of every social relationship...
It is the doubtful advantage of incipient sciences that they must temporarily furnish refuge for all sorts of vagrant problems. The boundaries of new sciences are necessarily indefinite and indefensible. They are thus open to all the homeless. They therefore gather by degrees a miscellaneous content which cannot be managed. Then the process of limitation begins. The immediate effect is disappointing, but, on the other hand, precise bounds secure sciences against later disappointment. The science of sociology is entering the stage of definition. It is beginning to assort the confused mass of problems that threatened to overwhelm it. Suffrage within the science is no longer unchallenged. The exact boundaries of the science are not yet beyond dispute, but in every direction earnest scientific efforts are evident to draw permanent lines of division. For a while the term "sociology" seemed to be a magic word that promised to solve all the riddles of history and of practical life, of ethics and of aesthetics, of religion and of politics. The source of this error is in the conception that the subject-matter of sociology is the whole sum of occurrences which take place in society. From that standpoint all problems that do not belong to physical science seem to fall within the scope of sociology. It is self-evident that this standpoint is untenable. It is plainly nonsensical to throw into one big pot labeled "sociology" all those researches which have been satisfactorily conducted by national economy, history of civilization, philosophy, political science, statistics, demography, juridical science, and ethics...
The first voyage to America, of which we have any account, was performed by Northmen. But who were the Northmen?
Northmen, Norsemen, Scandinavians, are different names applied in a general way to the early inhabitants of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. These people formed the northern branch of the Teutonic family.
America was reached by the Northmen as early as the beginning of the eleventh century...
This books deals with the discovery of America by the Northmen before Columbus.
Those who are engaged in the investigation of language have but recently begun to claim for their study the rank and title of a science. Its development as such has been wholly the work of the present century, although its germs go back to a much more ancient date. It has had a history, in fact, not unlike that of the other sciences of observation and induction-for example, geology, chemistry, astronomy, physics-which the intellectual activity of modern times has built up upon the scanty observations and crude inductions of other days. Men have always been learning languages, in greater or less measure; adding to their own mother-tongues the idioms of the races about them, for the practical end of communication with those races, of access to their thought and knowledge. There has, too, hardly been a time when some have not been led on from the acquisition of languages to the study of language. The interest of this precious and wonderful possession of man, at once the sign and the means of his superiority to the rest of the animal creation, has in all ages strongly impressed the reflecting and philosophical, and impelled them to speculate respecting its nature, its history, and its origin. Researches into the genealogies and affinities of words have exercised the ingenuity of numberless generations of acute and inquiring minds. Moreover, the historical results attainable by such researches, the light cast by them upon the derivation and connection of races, have never wholly escaped recognition. The general objects and methods of linguistic study are far too obviously suggested, and of far too engaging interest, not to have won a certain share of regard, from the time when men first began to inquire into things and their causes...
"Astronomy is the science which treats of the sun, the moon, the stars, and other objects such as comets which are seen in the sky. It deals to some extent also with the earth, but only in so far as it has properties in common with the heavenly bodies."
The growth of intelligence in the human race has its counterpart in that of the individual, especially in the earliest stages. Intellectual activity and the development of reasoning powers are in both cases based upon the accumulation of experiences, and on the comparison, classification, arrangement, and nomenclature of these experiences. During the infancy of each the succession of events can be watched, but there can be no à priori anticipations. Experience alone, in both cases, leads to the idea of cause and effect as a principle that seems to dominate our present universe, as a rule for predicting the course of events, and as a guide to the choice of a course of action. This idea of cause and effect is the most potent factor in developing the history of the human race, as of the individual.
