Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/559

Rh M O A M A 53.3 with his exposition of the ars generalis of Lully, included a memoria technica in his treatise De Umbris Idearum. About the middle of the 17th century Winckelmann made known what he called the &quot; most fertile secret &quot; in mne monics, namely the use of letters with figures so as to express numbers by words ; and the philosopher Leibnitz adopted an alphabet very similar to that of Winckelmann in con nexion with his scheme for a form of writing common to all languages. Winckelmann s method was modified and sup plemented in regard to many details by Richard Grey, who published a Memoria Technica in 1730. The principal part of Grey s method is briefly this : &quot; To remember any thing in history, chronology, geography, &c., a word is formed, the beginning whereof being the first syllable or syllables of the thing sought, does, by frequent repetition, of course draw after it the latter part, which is so contrived as to give the answer. Thus, in history, the Deluge happened in the year before Christ two thousand three hundred forty-eight ; this is signified by the word Deletok, Del standing for Deluge and etok for 2348.&quot; To assist in retaining the mnemonical words in the memory they were formed into memorial lines. The vowel or consonant which Grey connected with a particular figure was chosen arbitrarily ; but in 1806 Feinaigle, a monk from Salem near Constance, began in Paris to expound a system of mnemonics, one feature of which was to represent the numerical figures by letters chosen on account of some similarity to the figure to be represented or some accidental connexion with it. This alphabet was supplemented by a complicated system of localities and signs, with the aim of expressing, by a more vivid and impressive symbol, ideas which for want of this are apt to pass from the memory, and of establishing between ideas of the same group an intimate relation, so that the mention of the one would sug gest the other. Feinaigle, who published a Notice sur la mnemonique at Paris in 1806, came to England in 1811, and in the following year published The New Art of Memory. A simplified form of Feinaigle s method was published in 1823 by Aime Paris, and the use of symbolic pictures was revived in connexion with the latter by a Pole, Jazwinsky, of whose system an account was pub lished by J. Bern, under the title Expose^ General de la Methode Mnemonique. Polonaise, perfectionnee a Paris, Paris, 1839. Various other modifications of the systems of Feinaigle and Aim6 Paris were advocated by subsequent mnemonists, among them being the Phrenotyping or Brain-Printing method of Beniowsky, the Phreno-Mnemo- techny of Gouraud, and the Mnemotechnik of Carl Otto, a Dane. The more complicated mnemonic systems have fallen almost into complete disuse ; but methods founded chiefly on the laws of association have been taught with some success in Germany by, among others, Kothe, who is the author of Lehrbuch der Mnemonik, and Katechismiis der Geddchtnisskunst, both of which have gone through several editions ; and in England by Dr. Edward Pick, whose Memory and the Rational Means of Improving it has also obtained a wide circulation. In certain cases mnemonical devices may be found of considerable service ; but all systems which have aimed at completeness have been found rather to puzzle than aid the memory. The fullest history of mnemonics is that given by J. C. F. von Aretin in his Systematische Anleitung zur Theorie und Praxis der Mnemonik, 1810. MOA. See DINORNIS. MOAB. Moab and Ammon (children of Lot) consti tute along with Edom and Israel (children of Isaac) that group of four Hebrew peoples which in early antiquity had issued from the Syro-Arabian wilderness, and settled on the border of the cultivated country eastward of the great depression which extends from the Gulf of Elath to the Dead Sea, and up the valley of the Jordan. According to the book of Genesis, they had come out of Mesopotamia, and so Avere precursors of the larger wave which followed from the same quarter, forming the most southern outpost of the Aramaean immigration into the lands of Canaan and Heth. Whether the Hebrews were originally Ara maeans is questionable, but it is certain that, like the Aramaeans, they were distinct from the Canaan ites, whose conquerors they were. Such was the relation of the old and new inhabitants, not only in Western Palestine after the Israelite occupation, but also, and from a much earlier period, in Eastern Palestine, where the aborigines were Amorites that is, Canaanites and where the Bne Ammon and Moab and the Bne Isaac successively settled in their lands. The old population did not disappear before the conquerors, but continued to subsist among them. In a considerable district namely, in Gilead -the Amorites even remained unsubdued, and thus formed a gap, only imperfectly filled up by the Bne Ammon, between the Hebrew line of immigration on the south and the Ara maean line more to the north, a gap which did not begin to close until the historical period. From this district they even endeavoured, and with some success, as will be afterwards seen, to recover the territory which had been taken from them in the south. But where they were the subjects of the Hebrews they constituted the basis of the population, the mainstock of the working and trading classes. The extent of their influence over the conquerors may be judged from the fact that it was their speech which gained the upper hand. The Moabites, and doubt less also the Ammonites and Edomites, spoke the language of Canaan as well as the Israelites. They must have learned it from the Canaanites in the land eastward of Jordan, prior to the period at which Jacob immigrated&quot; to and returned from Egypt. Our knowledge is extremely imperfect as regards other departments of the Canaanite influence ; but in religion it has left a noticeable trace in the cultus of Baal-Peor, which was carried on in Moabite territory, but was certainly of Canaanite origin. The assumption that the change of language was first brought about by the Israelites in the land which is called by preference that of Canaan, is rendered untenable by the fact that the Moabites also spoke Canaanitish. It is vain to urge against the identity of Hebrew and Canaanitish the distinction between Phoenician and Hebrew ; for doubtless similar distinctions existed between the dialect of the Phoenician coast towns and that of the Hivites, Amorites, and Canaanites generally, whose language the Hebrews borrowed. That the Aramreans of Damascus, who also were com pelled to mingle with the Hethites in the country of which they bad taken possession, nevertheless retained their original tongue is to be explained by the circumstance that they continued to maintain direct relations with the mother-country of Mesopotamia, and more over had greater internal cohesion. The designation Amorites, usually given in the Old Testament to the original inhabitants of Eastern Palestine, is substantially synonymous with that of Canaanites, although not quite so comprehensive. The Palestine of the Pre-Israelitic period, which in the Pentateuch is called the Land of Canaan, figures in Amos as the Land of the Amorites. While, however, the former name is bestowed chiefly upon that portion of the earlier population which had remained uneoriquered, the latter is given to the portion against which the Israelites first directed their attack and in whose territory they settled. This took place in the mountain district, first to the east and afterwards to the west of Jordan. For this reason the Amorites, as contrasted with the Canaanites of the cities of the level country, are a highland race, like the Hebrews themselves, but belong exclusively to the past. In the time of the Biblical narrators, the Canaanites are still living here and there in the land, but the Amorites have once lived where the Israelites now are. This explains the fact that, while in ordinary peaceful circumstances the Canaanites are named as the old inhabitants, the Amorites are immediately substituted for them wherever war and conquest are spoken of. Sihon and Og, with whom Moses does battle, are kings of the Amorites ; in like manner it is with the twelve kings of the Amorites that Joshua has to deal westward of the Jordan. The Amorites as an extinct race of course assume a half-mythical character, and are represented as giants, tall as cedars and strong as oaks.