268 DOC. 148 S P A C E - T I M E 608 SOVA— SPACE-TIME 200 m. in 12 days while the infantry brigade in the centre in the concluding operations in 16 days marched 230 miles. Finally, the campaign reveals the extraordinary mobility of mounted riflemen when good horsemen are directed by a master hand. Bibl io g r a ph y .— M. Ritchie, With Botha in the Field (1915) W. Whittall, With Botha and Smuts (1917) R. Hennig, Deutsch Süd- west im Weltkriege (1920) T. Seitz, Südafrika im Weltkriege (1920). See also Wo r l d Wa r : Bibl io g r a ph y. (J. J. C.) SOVA, ANTONIN (1864- ), Czech poet, began his literary career early in the 'nineties with descriptive verse, the subject- matter of which was derived from the streets of Prague and from his native region of Southern Bohemia. His introspective poems, notably those contained in the volumes Lyrics of Love and Life, Mastered Sorrows and Once Again Shall We Return, include some of the finest lyrical poems in the Czech language, and have been compared, not without justification, with Verlaine. The dis- illusionment caused by the poet’s contact with the realities of life drove him to seek escape in a dream-world of his own, and this theme was treated in a series of visionary poems which reveal Sova as a master of symbolism. In 1913 appeared Harvests, a volume in which moods of a mature reconciliation predominate. In the succeeding decade Sova exhibited an unusual fecundity. The poems of this later period are written with the crystalline simplicity of folk songs, and there are others in which Sova is shown as one of the most enlightened spokesmen of Czech aspira- tions. He also wrote a number of novels and short stories. SOYA BEAN: see o il s a n d f a t s . SPA, CONFERENCE OF (July 5-16 1920).— This was the first occasion after the War of 1914-8 on which the heads of the German and Allied Governments negotiated on a formal footing of equality. At the same time, at Spa, as at Versailles, the Allies resorted to dictation, and negotiations resulting in an agreed settlement did not take place until the London reparations conference of July and Aug. 1924. The Germans were repre- sented by the chancellor, Herr Fehrenbach the Foreign Minister Dr. Simons and the Finance Minister, Dr. Wirth. The crucial questions at issue were the execution of the disarmament clauses and the coal delivery clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, and in both cases the Germans were compelled to sign protocols dictated by the Allies under threat of military sanctions which were set out in the documents and in both cases included an eventual Allied occupation of the Ruhr basin. In the coal negotiations, the Allies were exasperated by the pugnacious tone of Herr Stinnes, who gave evidence on behalf of the German coal-owners, but the protocol afterwards signed was remarkable inasmuch as it provided for partial cash payments by the Allies. A German proposal for the general settlement of the reparation problem was rejected, but on this occasion no general Allied counter-proposal was put forward. In regard to reparations, the chief permanent achievement at Spa was the inter-Allied agreement regarding the allocation of prospective German payments, an agreement which has since been modified in detail, but which still governs the situation. It was provided that France should receive 52% of sums obtained from Germany, the British Empire 22%, Italy 10% and Belgium 8%, while the remaining 8% was to be divided between the other Allied Powers. By a subsequent agreement among the several members of the British Commonwealth, 86.85% of the British Empire’s share was allocated to Great Britain. Another article in the Spa Agreement provided for the allocation of reparation payments from Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary, and “cost of liberation’’ pay- ments from Italy, Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia. At the Spa Conference the Supreme Council also came to an agreement with Germany regarding the trial of war criminals, dealt with the Teschen question and rejected the objections of the Constantinople Govt. to the draft Treaty of Sèvres. (A. J. T.) SPACE-TIME (see 25.525)— All our thoughts and concepts are called up by sense-experiences and have a meaning only in reference to these sense-experiences. On the other hand, how- ever, they are products of the spontaneous activity of our minds they are thus in no wise logical consequences of the contents of these sense-experiences. If, therefore, we wish to grasp the essence of a complex of abstract notions we must for the one part investigate the mutual relationships between the concepts and the assertions made about them for the other, we must investigate how they are related to the experiences. So far as the way is concerned in which concepts are connected with one another and with the experiences there is no difference of principle between the concept-systems of science and those of daily life. The concept-systems of science have grown out of those of daily life and have been modified and completed accord- ing to the objects and purposes of the science in question. The more universal a concept is the more frequently it enters into our thinking and the more indirect its relation to sense- experience, the more difficult it is for us to comprehend its mean- ing this is particularly the case with pre-scientific concepts that we have been accustomed to use since childhood. Consider the concepts referred to in the words “where,” " when,” why,” being,” to the elucidation of which innumerable volumes of philosophy have been devoted. We fare no better in our specu- lations than a fish which should strive to become clear as to what is water. I. SPACE In the present article we are concerned with the meaning of “where,” that is, of space. It appears that there is no quality contained in our individual primitive sense-experiences that may be designated as spatial. Rather, what is spatial appears to be a sort of order of the material objects of experience. The concept “material object” must therefore be available if concepts con- cerning space are to be possible. It is the logically primary concept. This is easily seen if we analyse the spatial concepts for example, next to,” touch,” and so forth, that is, if we strive to become aware of their equivalents in experience. The concept "object” is a means of taking into account the persist- ence in time or the continuity, respectively, of certain groups of experience-complexes. The existence of objects is thus of a con- ceptual nature, and the meaning of the concepts of objects de- pends wholly on their being connected (intuitively) with groups of elementary sense-experiences. This connection is the basis of the illusion which makes primitive experience appear to inform us directly about the relation of material bodies (which exist, after all, only in so far as they are thought). In the sense thus indicated we have (the indirect) experience of the contact of two bodies. We need do no more than call attention to this, as we gain nothing for our present purpose by singling out the individual experiences to which this assertion alludes. Many bodies can be brought into permanent contact with one another in manifold ways. We speak in this sense of the position-relationships of bodies (Lagenbeziehungen). The general laws of such position-relationships are essentially the concern of geometry. This holds, at least, if we do not wish to restrict ourselves to regarding the propositions that occur in this branch of knowledge merely as relationships between empty words that have been set up according to certain principles. Pre-scientific Thought.— Now, what is the meaning of the con- cept space” which we also encounter in pre-scientific thought? The concept of space in pre-scientific thought is characterised by the sentence: we can think away things but not the space which they occupy.” It is as if, without having had experience of any sort, we had a concept, nay even a presentation, of space and as if we ordered our sense-experiences with the help of this concept, present a priori. On the other hand, space appears as a physical reality, as a thing which exists independently of our thought, like material objects. Under the influence of this view of space the fundamental concepts of geometry: the point, the straight line, the plane, were even regarded as having a self- evident character. The fundamental principles that deal with these configurations were regarded as being necessarily valid and as having at the same time an objective content. No scruples were felt about ascribing an objective meaning to such statements as three empirically given bodies (practically infinitely small) lie on one straight line,” without demanding a physical definition [3] [4]
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