It is very interesting to see how accurately primitive peoples observe Nature, but these are not indications of time. On the Gazelle Peninsula it has been observed that when the SE monsoon blows the sun comes up in the east, and when the NW monsoon blows it rises in the south: the wind comes from the opposite direction to that in which the sun rises[345]. CHAPTER III. THE YEAR. Following the practice of my authorities I have often in the foregoing pages made use of the expression that the year is ‘divided’ into so many parts. From a genetic stand-point this expression is incorrect, because the time-indications, which relate to a concrete phenomenon of Nature, are older than the year, and, since they are connected only with the single phenomenon, are discontinuous or even indefinite. Only through their union does the complete year arise. Every natural year however offers on the whole the same phenomena following one another in definite succession, and thus the circle of the year has its prototype in Nature herself. Nevertheless the uniting of the different seasons into a complete year only takes place gradually by means of a selection, systematising, and regulation of the seasons. It must be carried out according to a principle--we shall see that this is as a rule the lunar reckoning--but the occupations of agriculture also serve as a handle. The present chapter will shew how the uniting of the seasons into the year is only a late and incomplete development, how originally the year does not exist as a numerical quantity, the _pars pro toto_ counting being resorted to, and finally how the years are not reckoned as members of an era but are distinguished and fixed by concrete events.