Dr. V.K. Maheshwari, Ph.D

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

‘You never seem to hear about psychic occult attack in spiritual literature.  This knowledge has been conveniently forgotten.’

In considering the achieved course of the evolution of the spiritual being, we have to regard it from two sides, a consideration of the means, the lines of development utilized by Nature and a view of the actual results achieved by it in the human individual.  There are four main lines which Nature has followed in her attempt to open up the inner being, religion, occultism, spiritual thought and an inner spiritual realization and experiences the three first are approaches, the last is the decisive avenue of entry.  All these four powers have worked by a simultaneous action, more or less connected, sometimes in a variable collaboration, sometimes in dispute with each other, sometimes in a separate independence.

Religion has admitted an occult element in its ritual, ceremony, sacraments, it has leaned upon spiritual thinking, deriving from it sometimes a creed or theology, sometimes its supporting spiritual philosophy, the former, ordinarily, is the occidental method, the latter the oriental: but spiritual experience is the final aim and achievement of religion, its sky and summit.  But also religion has sometimes banned occultism or reduced its own occult element to a minimum; it has pushed away the philosophic mind as a dry intellectual alien, leaned with all its weight on creed and dogma, pietistic emotion and fervor and moral conduct; it has reduced to a minimum or dispensed with spiritual realization and experience.  Occultism has sometimes put forward a spiritual aim as its goal, and followed occult knowledge and experience as an approach to it, formulated some kind of mystic philosophy: but more often it has confined itself to occult knowledge and practice without any spiritual vistas; it has turned to thaumaturgy or mere magic or even deviated into diabolism.

As man discovers the secrets and processes of physical Nature, he moves more and more away from his early recourse to occultism and magic; the presence and felt influence of gods and invisible powers recedes as more and more is explained by natural workings, the mechanical procedure of Nature: but he still feels the need of a spiritual element and spiritual factors in his life and therefore keeps for a time the two activities running together.  But the occult elements of religion, though still held as beliefs or preserved but also buried in rites and myths, lose their significance and diminish and the intellectual element increases; finally, where and when the intellectualizing tendency becomes too strong,

If we look at the past, we can still see the evidences of this line of natural evolution, although most of its earlier stages are hidden from us in the unwritten pages of prehistory.  It has been contended that religion in its beginnings was nothing but a mass of animism, fetishism, magic, totemism, taboo, myth, superstitious symbol, with the medicine-man as priest, a mental fungus of primitive human ignorance, later on at its best a form of Nature-worship.  It could well have been so in the primitive mind, though we have to add the proviso that behind much of its beliefs and practices there may have been a truth of an inferior but very effective kind that we have lost with our superior development.  Primitive man lives much in a low and small province of his life-being, and this corresponds on the occult plane to an invisible Nature which is of a like character and whose occult powers can be called into activity by a knowledge and methods to which the lower vital intuitions and instincts stage of religious belief and practice which would be occult after a crude inchoate fashion in its character and interests, not yet spiritual; its main element would be a calling in of small life powers and elemental beings to aid of small life-desires and a rude physical welfare.

Occultism is in its essence man’s effort to arrive at a knowledge of secret truths and potentialities of Nature which will lift him out of slavery to his physical limits of being, an attempt in particular to possess and organize the mysterious, occult, outwardly still undeveloped direct power of mind upon life and of both mind and life over matter. There is at the same time an endeavor to establish communication with worlds and entities belonging to the supra-physical heights, depths and intermediate levels of cosmic being and to utilize this communion for the mastery of a higher truth and for a help to man in his will to make himself sovereign over nature’s  powers and forces. This human aspiration takes its stand on the belief, intuition or intimation that we are on mere creatures of the mud, but souls, minds, wills that can know all the mysteries of this and every world and become not only Nature’s pupils but her adepts and masters. The occultist sought to know the secret of physical things also and in this effort he furthered astronomy, created chemistry, gave an impulse to other sciences, for he utilize geometry also and the science of numbers but still more he sought to know the secrets of super nature. In this sense occultism might be described as the science of the supernatural is in face either a spontaneous irruption of the phenomena of other nature into physical nature in the work of the occultist, a possession of the knowledge and power of the higher orders or grades of cosmic being and energy and the direction of their forces and processes towards the production of effects in the physical worlds by seizing on possibilities of interconnection and means for a material effectuality. There are powers of the mind and the life force which have not been included in nature’s present systematization of mind and life in matter, but are potential and can be brought to bear upon material things and happening or even brought in and added to the present systematization so as to enlarge the control of mind over our own life and body or to act on the minds, lives, bodies of others or on the movement of cosmic forces. The modern admission of hypnotism is an example of such a discovery and systematized application though still narrow and limited, limited by its method and formula of occult powers which otherwise touch us only by a casual or a hidden action whose process is in known to us or imperfectly caught by a few for we are all the time undergoing a battery of suggestions, emotional and sensational suggestions, thought waves, life waves that come on us or into us from others or from the universal energy but act and produce their effects without our knowledge. A systematized endeavour to know these movements and their law and possibilities to master and use the power or nature force behind them or to protect ourselves from them would fall within one province of occultism but it would only be a small part even of that province for wide and multiple are the possible field, uses, processes of this cast range of little explored knowledge.

Occultism is associated in popular idea with magic and magical formulae and a supposed mechanism of the supernatural. But this is only one side, nor is it altogether a superstition as is mainly imagined by those who have not looked deeply or at all at his convert side of secret nature force or experimented with its possibilities. Formulas and their application a mechanization of latent forces, can be astonishingly effective in the occult use of mind power and life power just as it is in physical science, but this is only a subordinate method and a limited direction. For mind and life forces are plastic, subtle and variable in their action and have not the material rigidity, they need a subtle and plastic intuition in the knowledge of them, In the interpretation of their action and process  and in their application even in the interpretation and action the their established formulas. An overstress on mechanization and rigid formulation is likely to result in sterilization or a formalized limitation of knowledge and on the pragmatic side, too much error, ignorant convention, misuse and failure. Now that we are outgrowing the superstition of the sole truth of Matter, a swing backward towards the old occultism and to new formulations, as well as to a scientific investigation of the still hidden secrets and powers of mind and a close study of psychic and abnormal or supernormal psychological phenomena, is possible and, in parts, already visible, but if it is to fulfill itself, the true foundation, the true aim and direction, the necessary restrictions and precautions of this line of inquiry have to be rediscovered, its most important aim must be the discovery of the hidden truths and powers of the mind force and the life power and the greater forces of the concealed spirit. Occult science is, essentially, the science of the subliminal, the subliminal is ourselves and the subliminal in world nature and of all that is in connection with the subliminal including the sub-cons Occultism is associated in popular idea with magic and magical formulae and a supposed mechanism of the supernatural. But this is only one side, nor is it altogether a superstition as is mainly imagined by those who have not looked deeply or at all at his convert side of secret nature force or experimented with its possibilities. Formulas and their application a mechanization of latent forces, can be astonishingly effective in the occult use of mind power and life power just as it is in physical science, but this is only a subordinate method and a limited direction. For mind and life forces are plastic, subtle and variable in their action and have not the material rigidity, they need a subtle and plastic intuition in the knowledge of them, In the interpretation of their action and process  and in their application even in the interpretation and action the their established formulas. An overstress on mechanization and rigid formulation is likely to result in sterilization or a formalized limitation of knowledge and on the pragmatic side, too much error, ignorant convention, misuse and failure. Now that we are outgrowing the superstition of the sole truth of Matter, a swing backward towards the old occultism and to new formulations, as well as to a scientific investigation of the still hidden secrets and powers of mind and a close study of psychic and abnormal or supernormal psychological phenomena, is possible and, in parts, already visible, but if it is to fulfill itself, the true foundation, the true aim and direction, the necessary restrictions and precautions of this line of inquiry have to be rediscovered, its most important aim must be the discovery of the hidden truths and powers of the mind force and the life power and the greater forces of the concealed spirit. Occult science is, essentially, the science of the subliminal, the subliminal is ourselves and the subliminal in world nature and of all that is in connection with the subliminal including the sub-conscientious and the super-conscientious, and the use of it as part of self knowledge and world knowledge and for the right dynamisation of that knowledge.

The knowledge of the supra-physical has been associated with mysticism and occultism and occultism has been banned as a superstition and fantastic error. But the occult is a part of existence; a true occultism means no more than a research into supra-physical realities and an unveiling of the hidden laws of nature, of all that is not obvious on the surface.

In modern times as physical science enlarged its discoveries and released the secret material forces of nature into an action governed by human knowledge for human use, occultism receded and was finally set aside on the ground that the physical alone is real and mind and life are only departmental activities of matter.  On this basis believing material energy to be the key of all things, science has attempted to move towards a control of mind and life processes by a knowledge of the material instrumentation and process of our normal and abnormal mind and life functioning and activities the spiritual is ignored as only one form of mentality. It may be observed in passing that if this endeavor succeeded, it might not be observed in passing that if this endeavor succeeded, it might not be without danger for the existence of the human, race, even as now are certain other scientific discoveries misused or clumsily used by a humanity mentally and morally unready for the handling of powers so great and perilous, for it would be an artificial control applied without any knowledge of the secret forces which underlie and sustain our existence. Occultism in the West could be thus easily pushed aside because it never reached its majority, never acquired ripeness and a philosophic or sound systematic foundation. It indulged too freely in the romance of the supernatural or made the mistake of concentrating its major effort on the discovery of formulas and effective modes for using supernormal powers. It deviated into magic white and black or into romantic or thaumaturgy paraphernalia of occult mysticism and the exaggeration of what was after all a limited and scanty knowledge.  These tendencies and this insecurity of mental foundation made it difficult to defend and easy to discredit, a target facile and vulnerable. In Egypt and the East this line of knowledge arrived at a greater and more comprehensive endeavor, this ampler maturity can be seen still intact in the remarkable system of the Tantras, it was not only a many sided science of the supernormal but supplied the basis of all the occult elements of religion and even developed a great and powerful system of spiritual discipline and self-realization. For the highest occultism is that which discovers the secret movements and dynamic supernormal possibilities of mind and life and spirit and uses them in their native force or by an applied process for the greater effectively of our mental, vital and spiritual beings.

Reference- Sri Aurobindo- The Life Divine

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Freud’s theory of personality development focused on the effects of sexual pleasure that affects one’s psyche. Childhood sexuality plays an important role in the development of the personality (Freud, 1961a, pp. 141–149). According to him, every child is full of energy that needs to be channelized in the right direction. He named this energy as libido. He believed that libido provides the basic platform for the mind to run on. The infant is capable of receiving sexual gratification from rhythmic stimulation of any part of the body. The overall development of a child depends on the way he or she controls or directs this energy. Freud termed this polymorphous perversity. As the infant matures, the generalized ability to receive sexual gratification decreases as certain parts of the body become preferred sites for gratification. In other words, the possibilities for gratification of the sexual instinct narrow as the infant develops. Freud postulated a series of developmental stages that describe this narrowing process of sexual gratification Freud’s stages of development essentially showcase how sexuality starts from the very young age in humans and how it develops till adulthood at different stages. If these stages are not completed or psychologically satisfied, a person may get fixated there which may lead to conflicted personality in the adulthood.

Freud emphasized the role of sexuality in the development of personality. The narrowing manifestations of sexuality proceed through five psychosexual stages of development. As the person proceeds through these stages, propelled by inherent forces and moulded by the environment, he or she acquires various components of personality. Fixation at any of the first three stages may produce certain personality types, such as the oral, anal, or phallic character. Children with more resolved psychosexual developments have greater capacity to develop normal relationships with opposite sex.
Freud’s theory essentially revolves around libido hence his theory is known as psychosexual theory. Given below are Freud’s stages of development that are also known as Freud’s stages of psychosexual development:
Stage 1 – Oral Stage ( Age Range: Birth to 1 Year .Erogenous Zone: Mouth)

This stage occurs from birth to around one year. As the name suggests, in this stage, a child tries to gratify his libidinal energy through his mouth by sucking, biting, chewing, etc. All desires are oriented towards lips and mouth, which accepted food, milk, and anything else he could get hands on . The first object of this stage was, of course, the mother’s breast, which could be transferred to auto-erotic objects (thumb-sucking). The mother thus logically became first “love-object,” already a displacement from the earlier object of desire (the breast). Freud proposed that the mouth has five functions: (1) taking in, (2) holding on, (3) biting, (4) spitting out, and (5) closing. Each is a prototype for certain personality traits. As this stage occurs during the first year of life and develops from the act of feeding in which the mouth and lips naturally come to receive more stimulation than other parts of the body. Children putting everything in their mouth at this age, be it objects, toys, or chocolates. , Freud thought that the non-nutritive components of an infant’s oral behaviour were sexual. Conscious and unconscious memories of oral experiences have a central position in the psychological life of the infant, and new experiences are organized around these memories These functions take on symbolic meaning in the adaptations the individual makes in coping with the anxieties and stresses of life. Oral fixation has two possible outcomes. If the person is dissatisfied at this stage, he is characterized by pessimism, suspicion, and sarcasm and grows into an adult who reduces tension or anxiety through eating, drinking, and smoking etc. Such personality is known as oral receptive personality. On the other hand overindulged person is known as oral aggressive personality which is characterized by optimism, gullibility, and hostility etc.). For example, taking in through the mouth is the prototype for acquisitiveness, holding for tenacity, and spitting out for rejection. Whether these traits become part of one’s personality depends on the amount of anxiety and frustration experienced in the oral stage. For example, an infant who was weaned too soon or too abruptly may develop a strong tendency to be possessive in order to avoid repetition of the anxiety and frustration of the weaning experience (Fine, 1979, pp. 150–171; Hall, 1954). The primary conflict at this stage is the weaning process–the child must become less dependent upon caretakers. If fixation occurs at this stage, Freud believed the individual would have issues with dependency or aggression. Oral fixation can result in problems with drinking, eating, smoking or nail biting.
Stage 2 – Anal Stage:( Age Range: 1 to 3 years. Erogenous Zone: Bowel and Bladder Control)

The anal stage develops during the second and third years of life as the anal area begins to assume a central position in the child’s sexual development. As children become capable of voluntary muscle control and eventual bowel control, they discover that sexual stimulation occurs from voluntarily retaining and expelling faeces. Following the oral phase, the child enters the sadistic-anal phase, which is split between active and passive impulses: the impulse to mastery on the one hand, which can easily become cruelty; the impulse to scopophilia (love of gazing), on the other hand. This phase was roughly coterminous with a new auto-erotic object: the rectal orifice (hence, the term “sadistic-anal phase”). According to Freud, the child’s pleasure in defecation is connected to his or her pleasure in creating something of his or her own. Anal ideas and memories involve such activities as elimination, retention, smearing, or cleaning. Anal fixation may occur due to strictness showed by the parents while toilet training which has two outcomes. The first can be a person with oral retentive personality which is characterized by stinginess, excessive tidiness, perfectionism, and stubbornness. The other outcome can be anal expulsive personality, which is defined by lack of self control, carelessness, and messy behaviour. Freudian assumptions is that every child likes to play with his feces and urine, and that he derives sexual pleasure from retaining his feces when he should astride them; he is suppose to treasure his feces as a most valued possessions. This alleged sexual pleasure in the retaining, hoarding, and collection of feces is describe as anal-eroticism, and regarded as a component of the sexual instinct, one which gives rise to all that can be ascribed to a hording or acquisitive tendency. . Toilet training, which usually occurs during this time, can have the effect of establishing prototypes for later conflicts with authority figures, meticulous cleanliness and orderliness, or even generosity and philanthropy (Arlow, 1995, p. 25; Fine, 1979, pp. 177–188). According to Freud, success at this stage is dependent upon the way in which parents approach toilet training. Parents who utilize praise and rewards for using the toilet at the appropriate time encourage positive outcomes and help children feel capable and productive. Freud believed that positive experiences during this stage served as the basis for people to become competent, productive and creative adults.However, not all parents provide the support and encouragement that children need during this stage. Some parents’ instead punish, ridicule or shame a child for accidents. According to Freud, inappropriate parental responses can result in negative outcomes. If parents take an approach that is too lenient, Freud suggested that an anal-expulsive personality could develop in which the individual has a messy, wasteful or destructive personality. If parents are too strict or begin toilet training too early, Freud believed that an anal-retentive personality develops in which the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid and obsessive.
Stage 3 – Phallic Stage: ( Age Range: 4 to 6 Years. Erogenous Zone: Genitals)

This stage occurs between four to six years of age where the

erogenous zones of the body are genitals start developing. At this age, children also begin to discover the differences between males and females.
At this stage the child discovers the pleasures of genital manipulation and another shift of the zone of sexual stimulation occurs. In the phallic phase, when the penis (or the clitoris, which, according to Freud, stands for the penis in the young girl) become primary object. In this stage, the child becomes fascinated with urination, which is experienced as pleasurable, both in its expulsion and retention. At this stage they frequently indulge in playing with their genitals in order to explore them. Because of increased dexterity, the child can now have regular and intense pleasure by stimulating the genitals. Sensitivity now becomes concentrated in the genitals and masturbation (in both sexes) becomes a new source of pleasure. The child becomes aware of anatomical sex differences, which sets in motion the conflict between erotic attraction, resentment, rivalry, jealousy and fear which Freud called the Oedipus complex (in boys) and the Electra complex (in girls) This is resolved through the process of identification which involves the child adopting the characteristics of the same sex parent.
The most important aspect of the phallic stage is the Oedipus complex. This is one of Freud’s most controversial ideas and one that many people reject outright.(The name of the Oedipus complex derives from Greek myth where Oedipus, a young man, kills his father and marries his mother. Upon discovering this he pokes his eyes out and becomes blind.) This Oedipal is the generic (i.e. general) term for both Oedipus and Electra complexes. In the young boy, the Oedipus complex or more correctly conflict, arises because the boy develops sexual (pleasurable) desires for his mother. He wants to possess his mother exclusively and get rid of his father to enable him to do so. Hence the boy develops castration anxiety. A problem the little boy then sets out to resolve by imitating, copying and joining in masculine dad-type behaviours. This is called identification, means internally adopting the values, attitudes and behaviours of another person
For girls, the Oedipus or Electra complex is less than satisfactory. Briefly, the girl desires the father, but realizes that she does not have a penis. This leads to the development of penis envy and the wish to be a boy. On the Electra complex, Freud was more vague. The complex has its roots in the little girl’s discovery that she, along with her mother and all other women, lack the penis which her father and other men posses. Her love for her father then becomes both erotic and envious. The resolution of the Electra complex is far less clear-cut than the resolution of the Oedipus complex is in males; Freud stated that the resolution comes much later and is never truly complete. Just as the boy learned his sexual role by identifying with his father, so the girl learns her role by identifying with her mother in an attempt to posses her father vicariously. At the eventual resolution of the conflict, the girl passes into the latency period, though Freud implies that she always remains slightly fixated at the phallic stage.
Eventually, the child begins to identify with the same-sex parent as a means of vicariously possessing the other parent. To explain women, Freud argued that young girls followed more or less the same psycho-sexual development as boys. Indeed, he argues paradoxically that “the little girl is a little man” According to Freud, the young girl must also at some point give up her first object-choice (the mother and her breast) in order to take the father as her new proper object-choice. Her eventual move into heterosexual femininity, which culminates in giving birth, grows out of her earlier infantile desires.
Fixation at the phallic stage develops a phallic character, who is reckless, resolute, self-assured, and narcissistic–excessively vain and proud. The failure to resolve the conflict can also cause a person to be afraid or incapable of close love; Freud also postulated that fixation could be a root cause of homosexuality

Stage 4 – Latency Stage ( Age Range: 6 to Puberty. Erogenous Zone: Sexual Feelings Are Inactive)

Next followed a long “latency period” during which sexual development was more or less suspended and concentrated on repressing and sublimating of earlier desires and thus learned to follow the reality-principle. This stage occurs between six to twelve years when children express no psycho-sexual development. No further psycho-sexual development takes place during this stage (latent means hidden). The libido is dormant.
This stage is precursor to the fourth stage of psycho-sexual development, the latency period, which extends from age five or six to puberty. The resolution of the phallic stage leads to the latency period, which is not a psycho-sexual stage of development, but a period in which the sexual drive lies dormant. Freud saw latency as a period of unparalleled repression of sexual desires and erogenous impulses. At about age six, the sexual instinct diminishes and the child enters a stage of sexual quiescence. Freud thought that most sexual impulses are repressed during the latent stage and sexual energy can be sublimated (re: defence mechanism) towards school work, hobbies and friendships.
According to Freud, at this stage, children suppress their sexual energy and direct it towards asexual pursuits such as, school, athletics, hobbies, social relationships, friendship with same-sex, etc., During this phase, the child gradually freed himself from parents (moving away from the mother and reconciling with father) or by asserting the independence (if he responded to his incestuous desires by becoming overly subservient to his/her father). He also moved beyond his childhood egoism and sacrificed something of his own ego to others, thus learning how to love others

Stage 5 – Genital Stage: (Age Range: Puberty to Death .Erogenous Zone: Maturing Sexual Interests)

This stage occurs between twelve to eighteen years which is also the puberty period. This stage lasts from puberty to death or senility, whichever comes first. This fifth stage of psychosexual development is characterized by non-narcissistic behaviour that develops in the direction of biological reproduction. It is a time of adolescent sexual experimentation, the successful resolution of which is settling down in a loving one-to-one relationship with another in our 20′s or so. Sexual instinct is directed to heterosexual pleasure, rather than self pleasure during the phallic stage. In this stage, as the child’s energy once again focuses on his genitals, interest turns to heterosexual relationships. The less energy the child has left invested in unresolved psychosexual developments, the greater his capacity will be to develop normal relationships with the opposite sex. If, however, he remains fixated, particularly on the phallic stage, his development will be troubled as he struggles with further repression and defences. Characteristics of this stage are an attraction for the
opposite sex, socialization and group activities, marriage and the establishment
of a family, and vocational development. For Freud, the proper outlet of the sexual instinct in adults was through heterosexual intercourse. Fixation and conflict may prevent this with the consequence that sexual perversions may develop. Where in earlier stages the focus was solely on individual needs, interest in the welfare of others grows during this stage. If the other stages have been completed successfully, the individual should now be well-balanced, warm and caring. The goal of this stage is to establish a balance between the various life areas.

Evaluating Freud’s Psycho-sexual Stage Theory

Freud’s theory states that the person’s development is completed till he reaches adulthood and his sexual experiences dominate his behavior throughout his life. However, Freud’s stages of development were and are criticized by experts due to overemphasis of his theory on sexuality without any supportive corroborative data. The psychologists today believe that personality development is a continuous process that happens throughout life.
The theory is focused almost entirely on male development with little mention of female psychosexual development. Freud often had difficulty incorporating female desire into his theories, leading to his famous, unanswered question: “what does a woman want?” As Freud states late in life, “psychology too is unable to solve the riddle of femininity” . It is for this reason that many feminists have criticized Freud’s ideas and one reason why many feminists interested in psychoanalysis have turned instead to Kristeva.
For girls, however, Freud believed that penis envy was never fully resolved and that all women remain somewhat fixated on this stage. Psychologists such as Karen Horney disputed this theory, calling it both inaccurate and demeaning to women. Instead, Horney proposed that men experience feelings of inferiority because they cannot give birth to children.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

“He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”

~Sigmund Freud

The theory of personality developed by Freud that focuses on repression and unconscious forces and includes the concepts of infantile sexuality, resistance, transference, and division of the psyche into the id, ego, and superego, and psychoanalysis is a method of psychological therapy originated by Sigmund Freud in which free association, dream interpretation, and analysis of resistance and transference are used to explore repressed or unconscious impulses, anxieties, and internal conflicts, in order to free psychic energy for mature love and work.

The principal feature and the principal virtue of Freud psychology was the discarding of a sensationistic and mechanistic (or quasi-mechanistic) psychology and the putting of his psychology on a hormic foundation. That is to say, Freud aligned himself with the tradition in psychology, known as voluntarism, which comes down from Aristotle and of which Schopenhauer has been the most influential modern exponent; the tradition which sees the most fundamental characteristic of men and animals in their purposive striving towards ends or goals. Like other exponents of this view, Freud regards this hormic urge to activity and to self-development and expression, given in the native constitution, not as entirely undirected and unspecialized in each species in disposition or impulses to strive towards goals of certain types; and he calls such specialized tendencies “ instincts “. An instinct so conceived is something very different from the instinct of the mechanistic behaviorist or the “tendency “of Jenet; for them an instinct is merely an “action pattern “ a system of reflex arcs in the nervous system which on being appropriately stimulated, leads the nervous excitation through a fixed system of  channels to a certain group of muscles and glands. In contrast to this, the instinctive disposition of the hormic psychology generates an impulse towards a goal of a certain type; and this impulse may express itself in a striving that may take a multitude of forms and bring into play a variety of muscular and other executive processes according to the circumstances; this variety being greater, the greater the creature’s power of intelligent appreciation of the circumstances and of intelligent adaptation of his action to those circumstances.

Freud recognizes that human species is endowed with many such instincts. But he assigns predominant importance to one of these , the sex instinct , his view of which has been developed in great detail,. Freud has postulated other instincts of man, writing vaguely of various lower instincts of cruelty, brutality, and destructiveness, and of a group of Ego instincts; but all these he has left entirely undefined. Once he wrote:” No knowledge would have been as important for the establishment of a sound psychology as some approximate understanding of the common nature and possible differences of the instincts. But he has neglected to seek such knowledge; and the neglect has been a principal source of defects in the Freudian psychology. It has led Freud to attribute to the sex instinct a number of tendencies of human nature which in reality are independent of it, and in this way greatly to magnify or exaggerate the role of sex in human life, or, as Janet has said, to construct “ an enormous system of medical philosophy, “ the theory of Pansexuality.

Freud’s development of his hormic psychology has suffered, not only from this neglect to define, by the aid of comparative studies, the nature of the human instincts other than the sexual , but also from his taking over a fallacy which has long been current in popular psychology and in the traditional associationist psychology of the utilitarian philosophy, namely the fallacy known as psychological hedonism, the assumption that all human striving is fundamentally a striving for pleasure. Freud calls this fallacious assumption “the pleasure principle” and has made it one of the foundations-stones of his psychology, much to its detriment. But in his recent work, “Beyond the Pleasure Principle,” he has revoked this error and recognized the hormic principle; thus showing once more his remarkable power of continually developing and rectifying his views.

While, then, instinctive striving is the fundamental conception of his psychology, Freud make great use of several other principles which, though not entirely novel, are used by him in a more far-reaching manner than by any of his predecessors; notably, unconscious or subconscious mental activity, conflict, and repression. All these principles may be said to have been used by Herbart; and the first of them has, of course, figured largely in the writings of Schopenhauer and of Ed. Von Hartmann. In the system of Herbart, which was an intellectualist rather than a voluntarist psychology, the strivings, the conflicts, and repressions (going on partly consciously, partly sub-consciously) were represented as functions of “ideas” and of “systems of ideas.” Over, and relative independence of , the “ideas,” the intellectual cognitive functions.

The fact of moral conflict within the human soul has, of course, been familiar through long ages;  and it has often been recognized that the man who is the seat of such a conflict may have but little understanding of the nature of the conflict and of the conflicting forces; that is to say it has long been justly recognized that such conflicts often are , in part at least, subconscious. Freud gave  a vast extension to this subconscious activity. He showed that such conflicts are not always, or commonly, fought out to a decisive issue; but that rather one of the contending forces, some specialized instinctive urge towards some special goal, is apt to be suppressed or repressed, but not thereby deprived of its power. He taught that a tendency thus repressed is apt to live on subterraneous, seeking expression in indirect ways. From the earliest months of life such repressions are effected; and each new repression adds to the sum of submerged tendencies or “ Complexes “which some  he calls“ THE Unconscious “ becomes a mass of rebellious tendencies, most or all of which are regarded by Freud as specializations of or derivatives from, the sex instinct. The energy with which they strive to gain expression is the energy of the sex instinct, which energy he calls the Libido.

Freud’s psychology consists largely in more detailed attempts to show how these repressed tendencies, constituting “the Unconscious,” gain partial expression in devious ways; in the normal man, in his dreams, in his phantasy, in the making of his choices and decisions, in various slips of the tongue, pen, and hand; and in neurotic patients, in their various symptoms.

Although his ideas met with antagonism and resistance, Freud believed deeply in the value of his discoveries and rarely simplified or exaggerated them for the sake of popular acceptance. He saw that those who sought to change themselves or others must face realistic difficulties. But he also showed us that, while the dark and blind forces in human nature sometimes seem overwhelming, psychological understanding, by enlarging the realm of reason and responsibility can make a substantial difference to troubled individuals and even to civilization as a whole. Prof. Freud has gained many ardent disciples who accept his teachings in the main and whom some have actively contributed to the development of the whole complicated system.  In addition to these professional followers, a host of laymen, educators, artists, and dilettanti, have been fascinated by the Freud-ian speculations and given them an immense popular vogue, so that some of the technical terms used by Freud have become embodied in the popular slang of both U. S. A .and U.K. Like Freud, they believe that psychoanalysis is the strongest and most sophisticated tool for obtaining further knowledge of the mind, and that by using this knowledge for greater self-awareness, patients free themselves from incapacitating suffering, and improve and deepen human relationships.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Empedocles and Anaxagoras paved the way for the natural scientific view of the universe which, under the name of the atomic theory, has remained the most influential theory in science to this day. Their teachings, however, needed revision in several important respects, and this they received at the hands of the Atomists. The Atomists agree with their predecessors in the acceptance of original and changeless particles of reality, but they deny to them the qualities ascribed to them either by Empedocles or Anaxagoras, and reject the view that they are moved from without by gods or a mind. Earth, air, fire, and water are not the ” roots of all things, ” nor are there numberless ” seeds ” of different qualities. Such things are not real elements, but are themselves composed of simpler units, invisible, impenetrable, indivisible spatial entities (atoms), differing only in form, weight, and size; and these units or atoms have an inherent motion of their own.

Empedocles, tried to retain Parmenidean principle and also account for change or what we actually experience about reality. He studied with both Parmenides and Heraclitus, which may have lead him to this attempt. He discuss specifically on the following concepts:

• Objects of experience do change
• These apparent changes are due to the mixing and un-mixing of particles in various combinations.
• The basic elements of particles are Earth, Air, Fire, and Water and this mingling makes beings (objects) and changes.
• The forces that act upon the elements are Love and Strife/Hate to make change.
• These forces are impersonal because we cannot construe the as having any purpose or goal in their action.

Anaxagoras:  attributes the introduction of the difference between Matter and Mind to him.His contribution can be summarized in the following areas :

• Introduced the idea in Pluralism of infinite divisibility.
• There are also infinite kinds of particles, and what distinguishes what something is, is the preponderance of one kind of particle as opposed to the others.
• Instead of 2 kinds of forces that caused motion, there is only one: Nous or “mind-reason.”
• Nous is unmixed and pure, it is everywhere and animates all things.  Since it is not mixed, it contains no “matter” or particles itself.
• The formation of the cosmos resulted from the rotary motion of Nous and before this the cosmos was and infinite and undifferentiated mass.
• Mind does not create the particles or elements (book says matter), it only works upon them without purpose or objective.
• The particles are not physical particles (so be careful when the book calls them “matter” that you do not get confused.)
  • They are infinitely divisible, and there are no smallest particles except as what we might call and “idealized limit” on an infinite process.

The Problem of Change

The Atomists agree with the Eleatics that absolute change is impossible ; reality is, in its essence, permanent, indestructible, unchangeable. At the same time, it cannot be denied that change  is going on, that things are in constant motion. Now, motion and change would be unthinkable without empty space, or the void, without what Parmenides had called non-being. Hence, the Atomists insist, non-being, or empty space, exists; space is not real in the sense of being corporeal, but it exists: what is (bodies), is no more real than what is not (space). A thing can be real without being a body. Being, or the full, and nonbeing, or the void, both exist. That is, the real is not one continuous, undivided, immovable being, as the Eleatics held, but a plurality of beings,—an infinite number of beings, separated from one another by empty spaces.

The Atoms

Each of these beings is indivisible impenetrable,  and simple, an atom. The atom is not a mathematical point, or a center of force, as some moderns conceive it, but has extension; it is not mathematically indivisible, but physically indivisible, i.e., it has no empty spaces in it. All atoms are alike in quality ; they are neither earth, air, fire, or water, nor are they germs of specific kinds. They are simply very small, compact, physical units, differing in shape, size, and weight, arrangement and position. They are un-derived, indestructible, and unchangeable. What they are, they have always been and ever shall be. In other words, atoms are the one indivisible Being of Parmenides broken up into small bits that cannot be further divided, and separated from each other by empty spaces.

Out of these atoms, as building stones of reality, and empty spaces, the different objects are formed, as comedies and tragedies are composed of the same letters of the alphabet. All bodies are combinations of atoms and spaces; origin means union; destruction, separation. Bodies differ because the atoms constituting them differ in the ways already mentioned. They act on one another by direct contact only, through pressure and impact, or by means of emanations moving from one body and striking the other, action in the distance being impossible. What causes atoms to unite and separate is the motion inherent in them. “Nothing happens without a ground, but everything for a reason and necessarily. ‘ ‘ The motion is uncaused, like the atoms themselves; they have never been at rest, but have been motion from the very beginning. Owing to the many different shapes of atoms, some having hooks, others eyes, or grooves, or humps, or depressions, they interlace and hook together.

This is explained as follows. Atoms are heavy and fall downward, but the larger ones fall faster, thus forcing the lighter upward. This action causes a whirling motion, which extends farther and farther, in consequence of which atoms of the same size and weight collect, the heavier ones at the center, forming air, then water, then solid earth ; the lighter ones at the periphery, forming the heavenly fires and the ether. Multitudes of worlds are produced in this way, each system having a center and forming a sphere ; some having neither sun nor moon, some with larger planets or a greater number of them.

There are 4 such elements:  Earth, Air, Fire, Water:  Empedocles names these the “roots of all things.” These seeds of all things have no limits in their magnitude because each one is qualitatively unlimited and inexhaustible The qualities of these 4 root elements are  qualitatively unchangeable, and these elements unite and separate in beings. How did these elements come together and separate?  Through the opposing forces of Love and Hate or Friendship and Discord. What seems to be different here is specifically that we have a cosmic force that works upon the elements of which all beings are a mixture and a separation. Forces as well as the elements are seen as divine.

We still have the theme of alternating dominance of one then the other, and this is a constant cycle that is determined by Fate.  (Fate is also a divine power – Moria.  Our modern understanding of Fate does not really recreate what the ancients meant here.)

All these elements are equal and of the same age in their creation; but each presides over its own office, and each has its own character, and they prevail in turn in the course of Time. And besides these, nothing else comes into being, nor does anything cease.  For if they had been perishing continuously, they would be no more; and what could increase the whole?  And whence could it have come?  In what directions could it perish, since nothing is empty of these things?  No, but these become different things at different times, and are ever continuously the same.

Our cosmos is constituted by a prevalence of hate, for if Love predominated no one of the elements would be distinguished from the others. In absolute Love, all elements are gathered up together and united as a compact whole like a sphere similar to the description given by Parmenides.

If Hate were to absolutely prevail, all the elements would be absolutely separate, and the cosmos could not exist.   On the other hand, Absolute Love would dissolve the cosmos into the wholly uniform sphere.  Beings were generated by the movement produced by Nous or Mind. Other things all contain apart of everything, but mind is infinite and self-ruling, and is mixed with no thing, but is alone by itself.  . . . For it is the finest of all things, and the purest, and has complete understanding less, are ruled by mind.

Here is an interesting development in that mind is perceived as a separate and greater the  “seeds” of all things may be pointing toward the separation of mind from the world as become an important distinction for metaphysics later.

Concept of Death

Remember though that mind did not create the seeds but only acted upon it.  We should not impose any thought of purpose or goal associated with Nous in Anaxagoras.

The earth is one of the bodies thus created. From the moist earth, or slime, life arose. Fieryatoms are distributed over the entire organism, which accounts for the heat of these bodies. They are especially abundant in the human soul. The soul is composed of the finest, roundest, most nimble, and fiery atoms, one soul atom between two other atoms,—and which produce the movements of the body. Certain organs of the body are the seat of particular mental functions: the brain, of thought; the heart, of anger; the liver, of desire. The resistance of every object, whether alive or not, to the pressure of surrounding forces is explained by the presence in it of such a soul. We inhale and exhale soul-atoms ; and life exists so long as this process continues. At death, the soul-atoms are scattered; when the vessel of the soul is shattered, the soul spill^ out. In an attempt to account for this and to also retain the perdurance of Being, Empedocles says that Birth and Death are “mixture and dissolution” of substances or elements that are not born and indestructible – they are eternally equal.  That is, they always Are. Here, coming-into-being and passing-away understood as a coming into being from nothingness and a passing away into nothingness, are impossible because Being Is.” And I shall tell you another thing: there is no coming-into-being of substance in any one of mortal existences, nor any end in execrable death,but only mixing and exchange of what has been mixed; and the name nature is applied to the by human beings.”

And I shall tell you another thing: there is no coming-into-being of substance in any one of mortal existences, nor any end in execrable death, but only mixing and exchange of what has been mixed; and the name nature is applied to them by human beings.

Anaxagoras also thought that coming to be and passing away was accounted for by the mixture and separation of elements of some sort – some kind of existing things, but instead of just 4 they were infinite in number.

The Greeks have an incorrect belief on coming to being and passing away.  No thing comes into being or passes away, but it is mixed together or separated from existing things.  Thus they would be correct if they called coming to being “mixing” and passing away “separating.” We have here the crude beginnings of a physiological psychology on a materialistic basis.

Epistemological position

Knowledge is he extent to which we are earth allows us to know earth, and it is the same for all the other elements.  Like recognizes like. We see earth by means of earth, water by means of water, divine air by means of air, and destructive fire by means of fire; love by means of love, hate by means of baneful hate.

Everything has a portion of thought.  Thought in humans is the heart nourished by the blood that surrounds it. Sense-perception is explained as a change produced in the

soul by the action of emanations, or images, or idols ,resembling the perceived body. These images fly off from the body and give their stapes to the intervening air; that is, they modify the arrangement of the particles next to the object, which gives rise to a modification in those immediately adjoining it,and so on, until emanations coming from the sense-organs are reached. The like perceives the like, that is, perception is possible only when the images passing from a body are like those emanating from the sense-organ. This theory of perception resembles, in principle, the ether theories of modern science.

By means of such images, which pass from objects everywhere, Democritus explains dreams, prophetic visions, and the belief ia gods. Gods exist, but they are mortal like men, though longer-lived. There is a world-soul, which is composed of finer atoms than the souls of men.

The sensible qualities (color, sound, taste, smell, etc.) which we attribute to the different bodies are not in the things themselves, but merely effects of combinations of atoms on our sense organs. Atoms, as such, have no qualities other than those we have already mentioned, impenetrability, shape, and size. Hence, sense-perception does not yield us a true knowledge of things; it tells us merely how these affect us. (We have here the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, which is made in modem philosophy.) We cannot see atoms as they are; we can, however, think them. Sense-perception is obscure knowledge ; thought, which transcends our sense-perceptions and appearances, and reaches the atom, is the only genuine knowledge.

Atomists  are rationalist, as, indeed, all the early Greek philosophers are. But thought is not, therefore, independent of sense-perception; indeed, ” the genuine way of knowing, which has a finer organ of thought,” begins when sense-experience can carry us no farther, ” when the investigation must be carried farther into that which is still finer ” than the limits placed against our sense-knowledge. Besides, it must be remembered that soul and reason are the same thing for Atomists’

The Axiological position

In the ethical fragments ascribed to Atomists can trace the outlines of a refined hedonistic ethics. The true end of life is happiness, which he describes as an inner state of satisfaction or pleasure, depending on the tranquility, harmony, and fearlessness of the soul. This does not depend on material goods, not on wealth or the pleasures of the body,—for these are short and productive of pains, and require repetition;—but on moderation in pleasure and symmetry of life. The less we desire, the less apt we are to be disappointed. The best way to seek the goal is to exercise the mental powers,—^by reflection and the contemplation of beautiful acts.

All virtues are valuable in so far as they realize the highest good, happiness; chief among them are justice and benevolence. Envy, jealousy, and bitterness of mind create discord and harm everybody. We should, however, do right, not from fear of punishment, but from a sense of duty. To be good, one must not merely refrain from doing wrong, but not even desire it.” You can tell the man who rings true from the man who rings false, not by his deeds alone, but also by his desires.” ” The right-minded man, ever inclined to righteous and lawful deeds, is joyous day and night, and strong, and free from care. ‘ ‘ We ought to serve the State because ” a well-administered State is our greatest safeguard. ” ” When the State is in a healthy condition, all things prosper; when it is corrupt, all things go to ruin. ‘

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

The  green house means a building made mainly of glass, with heat and humidity regulated for growing plants. The atmosphere acts like a glass in green house. In a green house, visible light passes through the glass and heats up the soil warming the plants. The warm soil emits radiation in longer wave-length-opaque to longer wave length of infra-red radiation; it partly reflects and partly absorbs infra-red radiations. This mechanism keeps the green house warmer than the outer atmosphere.

In a similar way, the earth’s atmosphere battles up the energy of the sun, and is said to act like a green house, where Carbon dioxide acts like glass windows.  Carbon dioxide and water vapors in the atmosphere transmit short wavelength solar radiations but reflect the longer wavelength heat radiation from warmed surface of the earth   molecules Carbon dioxide   are transparent to sunlight but not to the heat radiation. So they trap and re-enforce the solar heat stimulating an effect which is known as green house effect.

The greenhouse effect is the phenomenon whereby the earth’s atmosphere traps solar radiation, caused by the presence in the atmosphere of gases allow incoming sunlight to pass through but absorb heat radiated back from the earth’s surface. Atmospheric heating caused by solar radiation being readily transmitted inward through the earth’s atmosphere but long wave radiation less readily transmitted outward, due to absorption by certain gases in the atmosphere.

The science surrounding this phenomenon first appeared in print in the 1820s. Since then researchers have added countless refinements to the complexity of the discovery. The greenhouse effect was discovered and published in 1824 by the French mathematician Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Fourier (1768-1830).The greenhouse effect was first studied in 1896 by the Swedish Nobel-laureate (1903). Chemist Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927) who called it hothouse effect

Since there is considerable misunderstanding and misconceptions regarding the greenhouse effect, it is useful to list a few of the things the greenhouse effect is not:

1)  Greenhouse effect does not operate like a greenhouse that plants are grown in. Plant greenhouses stay warm because they are enclosed, preventing warm air from escaping. In the open atmosphere, warm air that builds up at the surface rises (“converts”) and mixes with air from higher altitudes, limiting warming near the surface. The atmospheric greenhouse effect is radioactive, not convective.

2) The greenhouse effect does not require solar radiation (sunlight) to operate. The greenhouse effect would still exist if there was no sun, and the climate system was instead warmed from below by geothermal energy.

3) The greenhouse effect cannot be demonstrated with a jar or other enclosure because there is too little greenhouse gas involved. Thousands of feet of atmospheric depth are required for the greenhouse effect to have a measurable effect on temperature.

The greenhouse effect is entirely due to the fact that the atmosphere absorbs and emits infrared energy, combined with a heat source to warm the bottom of the atmosphere (in our case, the Sun) and the cold depths of outer space above the top of the atmosphere. The greenhouse gases (and clouds) reduce the ability of the Earth’s surface to cool, thus raising its temperature above what it would be without those greenhouse gases.

Major Sources of Green house Gasses

There are two common meanings of the term “greenhouse effect”. There is a “natural” greenhouse effect that keeps the Earth’s climate warm and habitable. There is also the “man-made” greenhouse effect, which is the enhancement of Earth’s natural greenhouse effect by the addition of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels (mainly petroleum, coal, and natural gas).

The strength of the Earth’s greenhouse effect is determined by the concentration in the atmosphere of a handful of greenhouse gases. The one that causes the most warming overall is water vapors – though human activity affects its level in the atmosphere indirectly rather than directly.

‘Greenhouse gases’ is a term used to describe naturally-occurring and human-manufactured gases that trap heat in the atmosphere.  These greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, and chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs). . Although, these gases form only around 1% of our atmosphere, they are extremely vital in maintaining the ecological balance and sustaining life on this planet. Without the presence of these gases, the temperature of the earth would have been lesser than 30°C, which means that survival of living species wouldn’t be possible. The greenhouse effect can be thought of a process through which nature maintains a balance in the atmosphere.

Greenhouse gases, move in and out of the atmosphere. They trap some of the heat radiated out from the Earth that would normally move out into space. This is called the greenhouse effect. It is natural, and is caused by the earth’s carbon and water cycles and the heat from the sun. Without this warming we would be a cold dead planet.

Process of Greenhouse Effect

The Green House effect may therefore be explained as the progressive warming up of the earth’s surface due to blanketing effect of manmade Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The greenhouse effect refers to circumstances where the short wavelengths ofvisible light from the sun pass through a transparent medium and are absorbed, but the longer wavelengths of the infrared re-radiation from the heated objects are unable to pass through that medium. The trapping of the long wavelength radiation leads to more heating and a higher resultant temperature. Besides the heating of an automobile by sunlight through the windshield and the namesake example of heating the greenhouse by sunlight passing through sealed, transparent windows, the greenhouse effect has been widely used to describe the trapping of excess heat by the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infrared and does not allow as much of it to escape into space.

Steady increase in the Earth’s average lower atmosphere (near surface) temperature due to heat retention caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases These gases form a blanket around the earth that lets the incoming sun rays (short wave radiation) to pass through but blocks the reflected heat rays (long wave radiation) from going out into the space. Heat-retention is a natural phenomenon (essential to all life on earth) replicated in greenhouses where the glass roof traps radiant heat within an enclosed space.

Sunlight is one of the major sources of energy for living organisms. Apart from helping us with various energy needs, it also helps in keeping the atmosphere warm. When sunrays strike the surface of the earth, they are partly absorbed, and partly reflected back into the atmosphere. These reflected rays, known as infrared radiations, are captured by ‘greenhouse gases’, which helps in keeping our atmosphere warm.

The greenhouse gasses present in the atmosphere are also capable of absorbing long wave radiation and radiate energy back to the earth. When these gases increase in the atmosphere as a result of air pollution or human activities more energy is radiated back and consequently temperature of the earth increases. This phenomenon is known as green house effect or global warming.

Greenhouse Effect: Causes

Causes of this natural greenhouse effect:

The way the planet Earth is heated and cooled is, the Earth is heated by visible light from the sun during the day, and it cools off at night by radiating infra-red radiation to space. The earth’s water and carbon cycles move water vapors and carbon dioxide in and out of the atmosphere constantly. These gases are known as greenhouse gases, and have the property of being transparent to visible light but opaque to infra-red light. They absorb the infra-red radiation coming up from the warm earth and prevent some of it escaping to space. The warmed greenhouse gases then re-radiate heat, some of which goes back to earth. So they allow heat in during the day but prevent it from escaping at night.

Effects of this natural greenhouse effect

The earth is comfortably warm enough for life. Without this greenhouse effect human life on earth would be impossible as the earth would be in a permanent Ice Age. If too much of the Antarctic glaciers melt, sea levels will rise and coastal areas will flood. Agriculture will be disrupted. All weather patterns will change, with increased floods and increased droughts in various locations. There will be very big problems. The long-term natural greenhouse effect that has kept the earth warm for millions of years

Causes  that enhance greenhouse effect

The second greenhouse effect is known as the enhanced, or accelerated greenhouse effect. Extra carbon dioxide (CO2) has been added to the atmosphere by human activity, largely since the beginning of the Industrial Age,

Deforestation

One of the major reasons for the greenhouse effect is deforestation. With the increase in population, more and more forests are being cut to provide accommodation and other amenities to people. Thus one of the man-made causes of the greenhouse effect is deforestation. Deforestation increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Also, due to the disappearance of trees, photosynthesis cannot take place. Deforestation is rampant today due to the burden of our needs on land. . Trees use carbon dioxide and give off oxygen in its place, which helps to create the optimal balance of gases in the atmosphere.  The levels of deforestation have increased by about 9% in recent times..

Burning of Fossil Fuels

We all know that burning of fossil fuels, like petroleum and oil, wood and gas results in release of pollutants into the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases can also be released into the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels, oil, coal and gas. These materials are used increasingly and rampantly in industries. Most factories also produce many gases which last for a longer time in the atmosphere. These gases contribute to the greenhouse effect and also increase the global warming on the planet. These gases are not naturally available in the atmosphere. Therefore industries are also a major cause of the greenhouse effect.

Electrical Appliances

Other man-made cause of the increase in the greenhouse effect is the emission of greenhouse gases by electrical appliances. Electrical appliances are amongst the major contributors to the green house effect.  Even the humble refrigerator in the house emits gases which contribute to the greenhouse effect. These gases are known as Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and are used in refrigerators, aerosol cans, some foaming agents in the packaging industry, fire extinguisher chemicals, and cleaners used in the electronic industry. Some processes of the cement manufacturing industries also act as a cause towards the greenhouse effect.

Population Growth

Population growth is an indirect contributor and one of the major causes of the greenhouse effect. With the increase in population, the needs and wants of people increase. This increases the manufacturing and the industry process. This results in the increase of the release of industrial gases which catalyze the greenhouse effect.

Impact of Green house

These were some factors that cause an increase in the greenhouse effect. As mentioned before, it is not the greenhouse effect that causes global warming; it is the unrestrained human activity that has caused an increase in the greenhouse gases, which in turn have led to global warming. The need of the hour is to spare a thought on the damage that we might be causing to the environment. We may not live long enough to witness the repercussions of our actions, but our future generations might have to pay for our actions

Global warming is causing climate change. This increase in the temperature of the Earth has many effects. We are presently seeing the melting of a lot of glaciers, increased amounts of flooding in many areas, and increasingly violent weather, with more powerful hurricanes on average than we used to have. Winters may become shorter, but harsher. Summers may become increasingly hotter. Hurricanes and tornadoes may become gradually stronger and more common, and their range may become larger.

This may have a dramatic affect on many different animals, especially those that thrive and require very cold, or very hot climates. So far the effects are minor. Much more serious effects will result if this trend continues. Few clearly visible impacts are :

Increase in the global temperature- Today, the increase in the Earth’s temperature is increasing with unprecedented speed. To understand just how quickly global warming is accelerating, consider this: During the entire 20th century, the average global temperature increased by about 0.6 degrees Celsius (slightly more than 1 degree Fahrenheit).

Using computer climate models, scientists estimate that by the year 2100 the average global temperature will increase by 1.4 degrees to 5.8 degrees Celsius (approximately 2.5 degrees to 10.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Scientists agree that even a small increase in the global temperature would lead to significant climate and weather changes, affecting cloud cover, precipitation, wind patterns, the frequency and severity of storms, and the duration of seasons.

• Rising temperatures would raise sea levels as well, reducing supplies of fresh water as flooding occurs along coastlines worldwide and salt water reaches inland.
• Many of the world’s endangered species would become extinct as rising temperatures changed their habitat.
• Millions of people also would be affected, especially poor people who live in precarious locations or depend on the land for a subsistence living.
• Certain vector-borne diseases carried by animals or insects, such as malaria, would become more widespread as warmer conditions expanded their range.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions are the Biggest Problem- Currently, carbon dioxide accounts for more than 60 percent of the enhanced greenhouse effect caused by the increase of greenhouse gases, and the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing by more than 10 percent every 20 years. If emissions of carbon dioxide continue to grow at current rates, then the level of the gas in the atmosphere will likely double, or possibly even triple, from pre-industrial levels during the 21st century.

Climate Changes are Inevitable- According to the United Nations, some climate change is already inevitable because of emissions that have occurred since the dawn of the Industrial Age.

While the Earth’s climate does not respond quickly to external changes, many scientists believe that global warming already has significant momentum due to 150 years of industrialization in many countries around the world. As a result, global warming will continue to affect life on Earth for hundreds of years, even if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced and the increase in atmospheric levels halted.

Rise in Sea Level -Water expands slightly when heated. This explains why global sea levels would rise if the oceans warmed, just as the fluid in a thermometer rises when heated. Since 1900 the world’s average sea level has raised 10-20 cms (4-8 inches) and appears to be rising about 2.5 cms (inch) per decade. About 1/3 of the World’s population and more than a 3rd of the world’s economic infrastructure are concentrated in coastal regions. Current models indicate than an increase in the average atmospheric temperature of 30c would raise the average global sea level by 0.2 – 1.5 meters over the next 50-100 years.

One meter rise would flood low lying areas of major cities such as Shanghai, Cairo, Bangkok, Sydney, Mumbai etc as well as agriculture lowlands and deltas on Egypt, Bangladesh, India and China where much of the World’s rice is grown.

Decrease in food Production – Water is a limiting factor in the growth of many crops, especially in drier areas. Two climate models project that, with warming from a doubling of Co2 over 1988 levels, droughts would occur every other year across much of the world thus having the potential to lower crop yields.

Deterioration in Human Health – A warmer world affect human health by disrupting suppliers of food and fresh water. Sea level rise could spread infections disease by flooding sewage and sanitation systems. The dislocation and possible extinction of certain biological species and ecosystems cannot be ruled out.

Other effects include more evaporate-transpiration in tropic, alternation in existing precipitation patterns, effect on hydrological cycle etc.

How to Prevent a Green House Effect

• ² Shift over the next 30 years to perpetual and renewable energy resources that don’t emit CO₂ .
• ² Ban all, production and uses of CFCs and other Ozone depleting chemicals.
• ² Use energy more efficiently.
• ² Transfer energy efficiency, renewable energy, pollution prevention and waste reduction technologies to LDCs.
• ² Increase the use of nuclear power to produce electricity. This is an option only if safer and cheaper reaction can be developed and if  the problem of how to store nuclear waste safely for thousands of years can be solved.
• ² Capture methane gas emitted by landfills and use it as fuel.
• ² Cut beef production to reduce fossil fuel inputs into agriculture.
• ² Reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Walk, take public transportation or ride your bike instead of driving. Carpool with others whenever possible if you must travel by car. Buy locally grown or produced foods; doing so decreases energy use associated with transportation of these products
• ² Conserve electricity by switching off the TV, computer, radio and lights whenever possible. Unplug electronics from the socket when you are not using them. Use compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs, which can reduce energy consumption by approximately 60 percent, in place of incandescent light bulbs. Opt for energy-efficient appliances when shopping
• ² Plant trees; they contribute to the absorption of excess carbon dioxide. Providing shade and windbreaks, trees also contribute to creating even temperatures for buildings, thereby reducing the energy requirement for heating or cooling
• ² Keep in mind that heating water requires energy. Reduce your consumption of hot water by washing clothes in cold or warm water. Wait until the dishwasher is full to run it and activate the energy-saving feature if available on your machine. Invest in a low-flow showerhead, which has a lower water flow rate than normal showerheads. Dry your clothes, whenever possible, on a clothesline as opposed to using a mechanical dryer
• ² Reduce nitrous oxide emissions, the majority of which result from agricultural practices. Choose slow-release, low nitrous oxide-emitting fertilizers
• ² Conserve raw materials and energy by recycling or reusing items. Examples include recycling aluminum soda cans and donating or selling old clothing to second-hand stores
• ² Support international global warming legislation. Examples include the Montreal Protocol, which seeks to eliminate the production of CFCs, and the Kyoto Protocol, which aims to limit emissions of the other greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Socrates often explains that his role is that of a ***philosophical midwife***, not to tell people what the truth is, but rather to help them get out the truths that are already inside them. For example, in Theaetetus, Socrates tells the title character: “Well, my art of midwifery is in most respects like theirs; but differs, in that I attend men and not women; and look after their souls when they are in labour, and not after their bodies: and the triumph of my art is in thoroughly examining whether the thought which the mind of the young man brings forth is a false idol or a noble and true birth.”

Toward the end of the fifth century B.C. a man was needed to bring order into the intellectual and moral chaos of the age, to Life of sift the true from the false, the essential from the accidental, to set men right and to help them to see things in their right relations,—a peacemaker who might hold the balance even between the ultra-conservatives and the ultraliberals. The man appeared in Socrates, one of the greatest figures in the history of thought, the intellectual father of a line of philosophers whose ideas and ideals dominated Western civilization for two thousand years, and continue to influence speculation to this day.

Socrates was born in Athens, 469 B.C., the son of poor parents, his father being a sculptor, his mother a midwife. How he acquired an education, we do not know, but his love of knowledge evidently created opportunities in the cultured city for intellectual growth. He took up the occupation of his father, but soon felt ” a divine vocation to examine himself by questioning other men.” In personal appearance Socrates was not prepossessing. He was short, stocky, and stout, blear-eyed and snub-nosed; he had a largemouth and thick lips, and was careless in his dress, clumsy and uncouth, resembling in his physical make-up a Satyr, for which reason Alcibiades, in Plato’s Symposium, likened him to the busts of Silenus. But all these peculiarities were forgotten when he began to speak, so great were his personal charm and the effect of his brilliant conversation

Socrates exemplified in his conduct the virtues which he taught: he was a man of remarkable self-control, magnanimous, noble, frugal, and capable of great endurance ; and his wants were few. He gave ample proof, during his life of seventy years, of physical and moral courage, in war and in the performance of his political duties. His bearing at his trial furnishes an impressive picture of moral dignity, firmness and consistency; he did what he thought was right, without fear or favor, and died as beautifully as he had lived, with charity for all and malice toward none; condemned by his own people, on a false charge of atheism and of corrupting the youth, to drink the poison hemlock (399 B.C). His respect for authority and his loyalty to the State he proved by obeying the laws himself ” and insisting that others obey them. When, after his condemnation, friends arranged a plan of escape, he refused to profit by it, o# the ground that he had enjoyed the benefits of the laws during his whole life and could not, in his old age, prove disloyal to his benefactors.

Socrates developed a method of questioning designed to expose weaknesses in the interrogated (sometimes referred to as the maieutic method, in which the questioner acts as a midwife, helping to give birth to others’ thoughts). He believed circumspect use of language and endless self-questioning are crucial in the quest for wisdom. Teacher of Plato, world-sage in outlook, he saw philosophy as a way of life, the highest calling of a select few. For him the highest good is knowledge. He wrote nothing but dramatically influenced the course of intellectual history.

It was his custom to engage in converse with all sorts and conditions of men and women, on the streets, in the market-place, in the gymnasia, discussing the most diverse topics: war, politics, marriage, friendship, love, housekeeping, the arts and trades, poetry, religion, science, and, particularly, moral matters. Nothing human was foreign to him. Life with all its interests became the subject of his inquiries, and only the physical side of the world left him cold; he declared that he could learn nothing from trees and stones. He was subtle and keen, quick to discover the fallacies in an argument and skillful in steering the conversation to the very heart of the matter. Though kindly and gentle in disposition, and brimming over with good humor, he delighted in exposing the quacks and humbugs of his time and pricking their empty bubbles with his wit.

In order to reach the truth, so his thought ran, we must not trust every chance opinion that enters our heads. Confused, vague, and empty thoughts fill our minds; we have a lot of undigested opinions which we have never examined, a lot of prejudices which we have accepted on faith, and of which we do not understand the meaning; we make a lot of arbitrary assertions for which we have no warrant. In fact, we have no knowledge at all, no convictions; we have built our intellectual house on sand; the whole edifice will tumble to pieces upon the slightest attack. It is our business to clear up our ideas, to understand the real meaning of terms, to define correctly the notions we employ, to know exactly what we are talking about. Then, too, we should have reasons for our views; prove our assertions,—think, not guess,—put our theories to the test, verify them by the facts, and modify and correct them in accordance with the facts.

In discussing a subject, Socrates generally sets out from the popular and hastily formed opinions of his company. These he tests by means of illustrations taken from everyday life, showing, wherever possible and necessary that they are not well-founded, and that they are in need of modification and correction. He helps those taking part in the dialogue to form the correct opinion, by suggesting instances of all kinds, and does not rest content until the truth has developed step by step.

A well-known example will make this clear. By skillful questioning Socrates gets a young man named Euthydemus to confess his ambition to become a great politician and statesman. Socrates suggests to him that, in that case, he must, naturally, hope to be a just man himself. The young man thinks he is that already. We go on with the story as it is told by Xenophon.

” But, says Socrates, there must be certain acts which are the proper products of justice, as of other functions or skills. No doubt. Then of course you can tell us what those acts and products are? Of course I can, and the products of injustice as well. Very good; then suppose we write down in two opposite columns what acts are products of justice and what of injustice. I agree, says Euthydemus. Well now, what of falsehood? In which column shall we put it? Why, of course in the unjust column. And cheating? In the same column. And stealing? In it too. And enslaving? Yes. Not one of these can go to the just column? Why, that would be an unheard-of thing. Well but, says Socrates, suppose a general has to deal with some enemy of his country that has done it great wrong; if he conquer and enslave this enemy, is that wrong? Certainly not. If he carries off the enemy’s goods or cheats him in his strategy, what about these acts? Oh, of course they are quite right. But I thought you were talking about deceiving or ill-treating friends. Then in some cases we shall have to put these very same acts in both columns?

I suppose so. Well, now, suppose we confine ourselves to friends. Imagine a general with an army under him discouraged and disorganized. Suppose he tells them that reserves are coming up, and by cheating them into this belief, he saves them from their discouragement, and enables them to win a victory. What about this cheating of one’s friends? Why, I suppose we shall have to put this too on the just side. Or suppose a lad needs medicine, but refuses to take it, and his father cheats him into the belief that it is something nice, and getting him to take it, saves his life; what about that cheat? That will have to go to the just side too. Or suppose you find a friend in desperate frenzy, and steal his sword from him for fear he should kill himself; what do you say to that theft? That will have to go there too. But I thought you said there must be no cheating of friends ? Well, I must take it all back, if you please. Very good. But now there is another point I should like to ask you. Whether do you think the man more unjust who is a voluntary violator of justice, or he who is an involuntary violator of it? Upon my word, Socrates, I no longer have any confidence in my answers. For the whole thing has turned out to be exactly the contrary of what I previously imagined.” *

In this way, by a process of induction, Socrates evolves definitions. With the help of examples, a provisional definition is formed; this is tested by other examples, and broadened or narrowed to meet the requirements until a satisfactory result has been reached. What Bacon would call negative instances play an important role in the process, that is, cases which contradict the provisional definition offered? The aim is always to discover the essential characteristics of the subject to be defined, to reach clear and distinct notions, or concepts.

The chief concern of Socrates was to meet the challenge of Sophistry, which, in undermining knowledge, threatened the foundations of morality and the State. He looked upon philosophical reflection as the most timely  and practical of tasks, for if skepticism was to be the last word of the age, there would be little hope of escaping the nihilistic conclusions of the fashionable views of life. He saw clearly that the prevailing ethical and political fallacies sprang from a total misconception of the meaning of truth, and that the problem of knowledge was the key to the entire situation. It was in this conviction, and with an optimistic faith in, the power of human reason to meet the practical difficulties of his times, that he entered upon his mission. The aim which he set himself was not to construct a system of philosophy, but to arouse in men the love of truth and virtue, to help them to think right in order that they might live right. His purpose was practical rather than speculative; he was interested in the correct method of acquiring knowledge more than in a theory of such a method, or methodology. He did not offer a theory at all, but practiced a method, lived it, and, by his example, taught others to follow it.

At other times, Socrates tests the statements made, by going back at once to first principles, by criticising them in the light of correct definitions. Here the method is deductive. You say, for example, that this man is a better citizen than that one. Your assertion, however, is a mere subjective opinion, having no value whatever unless you can give reasons for it. You should know what a good citizen  you should define your terms. Knowledge, then, is possible, after all. We can attain truth if we pursue the proper method, if we define our terms correctly, if we go back to first principles. Knowledge is concerned with the general and typical, not with the particular and accidental.

The Sophists say there is no truth, we cannot know; men differ, opinion is set against opinion, and one is as good as another. This, says Socrates, is a mistake. There is diversity of thought, true; but it is our duty to discover whether, in the clash of opinions, there may not be agreement, some common ground on which all can stand, some principle to which all can subscribe. To evolve such universal judgments was the purpose of the Socratic method, which our philosopher employed in his discussions, and which is an ingenious form of cross-examination.

He pretended not to know any more about the subject under discussion than the other participants; indeed, he often acted as though he knew less (the Socratic irony). Yet they soon felt that he was master of the situation, that he was making them contradict themselves, and all the while deftly guiding their thought into his own channels. ” You are accustomed to ask most of your questions when you know very well how they stand,” so one of his listeners complained. Before one’s very eyes, the confused and erroneous notions of the disputants shape themselves into form, growing clear and distinct, and finally stand out like beautiful statues.

This the Sophists failed to understand, and Socrates sets them right. He shared with them, however, the belief in the futility of physical and metaphysical speculations. ” Indeed, in contrast to others, he set his face against all discussions of such high matters as the nature of the universe; how the ‘ cosmos,’ as the savants phrase it, came into being; or by what forces the celestial phenomena arise. To trouble one’s brain about such matters was, he argued, to play the fool. ‘

‘ His interests were practical, and he did not see what was to come of such speculations. ” The student of human learning,” he said, ” expects to make something of his studies for the benefit of himself or others, as he likes. Do these explorers into the divine operations hope that when they have discovered by what forces the various phenomena occur, they will create winds and waters at will and fruitful seasons? “Will they manipulate these and the like to suit their needs? ” ” He himself never wearied of discussing human topics. What is piety? what is impiety? What is the beautiful? what the ugly? What the noble? what the

base? What is meant by just and unjust? What by sobriety and madness, what by courage and cowardice? What is a State? What is a statesman? What is a ruler over men? What is a ruling character? and other like problems, the knowledge of which, as he put it, conferred a patent of nobility on the possessor, whereas those who lacked the knowledge might deservedly be stigmatized as slaves. ‘ Socrates ‘s faith in knowledge, in clear and reasoned thinking, is strong,—so strong that he sees in it the cure of all our ills. He applies his method to all human problems, particularly to the field of morality, and seeks to find a rational basis for conduct.

The radical thinkers, as we saw, looked upon the ethical ideas and practices of their times as mere conventions; after all, might makes right. The conservatives regarded them as self-evident : rules of conduct are not things about which one can reason; they have to be obeyed.

Socrates endeavors to understand the meaning of morality, to discover a rational principle of right and wrong, a criterion by which to measure it. The question uppermost in his mind is: How shall I order my life? “What is the rational way of living? How ought a reasoning being, a human being, to act? The Sophists cannot be right in saying that man is the measure of all things in the sense that whatever pleases me, the particular me, is right for me; that there is no universal good.

There must be more to the matter than that; there must be some principle, or standard, or good, which all rational creatures recognize and accept when they come to think the problem out. What is the good, what is the good for the sake of which all else is good, the highest good? Knowledge is the highest good, so Socrates answers. Right thinking is essential to right action. In order to steer a ship or rule a State, a man must have knowledge of the construction and function of the ship, or of the nature and purpose of the State. Similarly, unless a man knows what virtue is, unless he knows the meaning of self-control and courage and justice and piety and their opposites, he cannot be virtuous; but, knowing what virtue is, he will be virtuous. ” No man is voluntarily bad or involuntarily good.” ” No man voluntarily pursues evil or that which he thinks to be evil. To prefer evil to good is not in human nature ; and when a man is compelled to choose between two evils, no one will choose the greater when he may have the less.” The objection is raised that ” we see the better and approve of it and pursue the evil.” Socrates would have denied that we can truly know the good and not choose it. With him knowledge of right and wrong was not a mere theoretical opinion, but a firm practical conviction, a matter not only of’ the intellect, but of the will. Besides, virtue is to a man’s interest. The tendency of all honorable and* useful actions is to make life painless and pleasant, hence the honorable work

is the useful and good. Virtue and true happiness are identical; no one can be happy who is not temperate and brave and wise and just. ” I do nothing, ” says Socrates in the Apology, ” but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or properties, but first and chiefly to

care about the greatest improvement of the soul. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.” And the last words which he speaks at his trial are these: ” Still I have a favor to ask of them [my condemners and accusers]. When my sons are grown up, I would ask you, oh my friends, to punish them; and I would have you trouble them as I have troubled you if they seem to care about riches or about anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing,—then reprove them, as I have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if you do this, both I and my sons will have received justice at your hands. ‘

Socrates, as we have already pointed out, did not construct a system of metaphysics nor did he offer a theory of knowledge or of conduct. It remained for his pupils to build upon the foundations laid by the master.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

Socrates

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

An objective is an goal or end point of something towards which actions are directed. Objectives generally indicate the end points of a journey. They specify where you want to be or what you intend to achieve at the end of a process. An educational objective is that achievement which a specific educational instruction is  expected to  make  or accomplish.  It is the outcome of any educational instruction. It is the purpose for which any particular educational undertaking is carried out.

Instructional objectives are those the student should attain upon completion of a segment of instruction. In theory, objectives can vary in scope and character. Instructional procedures ,describe the teaching process; most decisions a teacher makes are on these procedures. Proper management of this component results in those changes I student behavior which we call learning or achievement. Procedures must vary with the instructional objectives.

One way to define instructional objectives is to identify the end-product of instruction in terms of observable performance.  The way to determine whether or not a student has learned something is to observe the outcome of his behavior. These outcomes have been conventionally referred to as behavioral objectives. It is more precise to refer to these end products of instruction as terminal performances.

The second set of objectives are non-behavioral  statements instructional objectives, where the terminal performances are not specified, because the performance implied are interior states, responses, and processes not open to observation.

The distinction between  behavioral and non-behavioral statements lies chiefly in the choice of verb. The verbs in the behavioral statements were to name, to distinguish, and to list. These are publicly observable acts. In the non-behavioral statements the verbs are to understand, to appreciate and to grasp the significance of. These do not indicate how the student will visibly show his understanding and appreciation. Also, much of his understanding and appreciation is neural and cerebral activity which is hardly open to observation by the teacher.

Merits of Behavioral Objectives

Ralph Tyler and Robert Gagne provide three persuasive reasons for the careful definition of instructional objectives. First, such a definition provides guidance in the planning of instruction. If you are not certain where you are going, you may very well end up someplace else. Thus, the teacher must determine at the start what the student will be able to do at the finish. A careful statement of this terminal performance enables the teacher to plan the steps the student must take to achieve it . The teacher can provide for all the responses t he student must take to achieve it. The teacher can provide for all the responses only after he has adequately described the characteristics of these final responses. You may recall that in the pre-tutorial phase of the computer-based teaching model the search for the appropriate program is based on the instructional objectives and the entering behavior of the student. One of the possible outcomes of this search is the modifications of objectives—by changing the amount of time, the expected level of mastery, or the topics covered. These changes can occur only if the objectives first appear in behavioral form. IN the same way, instructional procedures cannot accommodate differences in entering behavior unless the teacher determines in some precise form what the student is able to do before instruction and what he is expected to do after instruction. By far the most important reason for using explicit statements of instructional objective in the guidance they provide the teacher in planning his instructional objectives is the guidance they provide the teacher in planning his instructional procedures.

A second reason for making explicit statements of instrumental objectives is that they are useful in performance assessment. In education, the original concern for adequate statements of objectives came from men chiefly interested in test construction and curriculum evaluation. They discovered that using ambiguous statements of objectives made in difficult or impossible to construct tests and test items. One has much more difficulty constructing test items for objectives which contain the verbs to know and to understand than for those which contain verbs to solve and to differentiate.

A third reason for using explicit statements of objectives pertains more to the student than to the teacher. If the student knows beforehand what he must learn in any given unit of instruction, he can better direct his own attention and efforts. When you contemplate how  frequently students are unable to make even an approximate statement of what the teacher is trying to explain the importance of this practice become convincing.

A study of Mager and McCann provides empirical support for the benefits student derives from knowing at the start the specific objectives they should attain. Much learning can occur when the teacher does nothing beyond presenting the student with the list of instructional objectives.

Limitations of Behavioral objectives

One of the first critics of behavioral objectives was Robert Ebel. He argued that instructional objectives pertain to processes as well as products. To limit instructional objectives pertain to products results in an overemphasis on conformity. Ebel writes: “For, if the goals of education are defined in terms of narrowly specific behavior desired by curriculum makers and teachers, what need is there for critical judgment by the student; what freedom is there for creative innovation; what provision is there for adaptive behavior as the cultural world changes? “.

Ebel also argued that there was practical difficulty in the use of behavioral objectives. To try to list all the behavioral objectives for a unit or course requires books rather than statements or paragraphs. Even books ob behavioral objectives would not be able to fully describe all the particular behaviors desired. What is gained in concreteness is lost in complexity.

Elliot Eisner added to the basic criticism of behavioral objectives. In complex subject matters and skills behavioral objectives may be neither possible nor desirable. He believes that in the ‘art and subject matters where novel and creative responses are desired the particular behavior to be developed can not  easily be identified. Here curriculum and instruction should yield behaviors and products which are unpredictable. The end achieved ought to be something of a surprise to both teacher and pupil’.

Eisner further argues that there is vast difference between making a quantitative judgment and applying an objective standard. We can make a behavioral judgment of a piece of writing in terms of grammar, syntax, and even logic. But what shapes our preferences for the writings of Truman Capote or Gore Vidal over that of Earnest Hemingway is the result of the aesthetic impact of content and style- a qualitative judgment that varies with individuals and times. It is often the uniqueness of what these writers say and do rather than their conformity to a standard that gives their writings literary and artistic value.

Eisner also differentiated between the psychological and logical study courses. Although it seems logical that a person should know where he is going when he embarks on a trip, it is often often not the most psychologically satisfying way to travel. It is often more exiting to leave some of the itinerary unplanned or to change it when the more interesting alternatives are discovered.

James McDonald believes that our objectives are known to us only after the completion of instruction. Teachers first ask question’ What am I going to do? ‘and out of the doing comes the final accomplishment.

Conclusion

It now appears that not all instructional objectives can or need be defined in behavioral terms. Those that are defined in behavioral terms need not be atomistic and trivial. The most useful level of specificity the teacher describes  the concrete behavior he wants the student to acquire. These instructional objectives should express a purpose  which is meaningful in the  larger context of the life goals of the student, and this purpose should be distinguishable from others.

Not all topics or courses  are equally adaptable to behavioral objectives. Moreover age and grade level differences must also be  adapted to the substantive  behavioral objectives. For example , the behavioral objectives  for history courses  at the graduate level and at the elementary school level can not be identical because of the differences in course content and ages of the student. B oth substance and age considerations are important in setting the objectives.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

The best substitute for a theory of teaching is a model of teaching. Teaching models merely suggest how various teaching and learning conditions are interrelated. In many fields models are prototypes of theories because they make possible our early conceptualization  and study of phenomena. Unlike theories, in their early state of development models lack factual support. Evantually useful models give way to empirically supported theories.

A Basic Teaching Model

Robert Glaser (1962)  has developed a stripped-down teaching model which, with modifications, is the basic teaching model. The basic teaching model divides the teaching process into four components or parts. It will be useful in several ways. It helps to organize the great body of facts, concepts and principles which makes  up

The above diagram is a diagram of basic teaching model. The four parts  of the model  represent the basic divisions. Box A denotes Instructional objectives, Box B  includes Entering behavior, Box C deals with instructional procedure, and finally Box D relates to performance assessment. The diagram referred above applies to the four components of the basic teaching model, with its connecting arrows shows only the major sequence of events in the instructional process, it is possible to add many more connecting lines. Lines with connect components later in the sequence with earlier ones are called FEEDBACK LOOPS .The three feedback loops as shown in the diagram shown below for example, connect performance assessment with each of the earlier components of the model.

Instructional objectives

Instructional objectives are those the student should attain upon completion of a segment of instruction. In theory, objectives can vary in scope and character. Instructional procedures ,describe the teaching process; most decisions a teacher makes are on these procedures. Proper management of this component results in those changes I student behavior which we call learning or achievement. Procedures must vary with the instructional objectives.

One way to define instructional objectives is to identify the end product of instruction in terms of observable performance. The way to determine whether or not a student has learned something is to observe the outcome of his behavior. The outcome has been conventionally referred to as behavioral objectives. It is more precise to refer to these end products  of instruction as terminal performances. In most schools these are verbal performances or motor skills.

Entering behavior

Entering behavior describes the student level before the instruction begins. It refers to what the student has previously learned, his intellectual ability and development, his motivational state, and certain social and cultural determinants of his learning ability. Entering behavior is a more precise term than its usual alternatives—human ability, individual differences, and readiness. This precision may come at the price of seeing the student as less complex, less able, and less experienced than he may in fact be. Schools tend to define entering behavior in terms of the traditions curriculum rather than in terms of student ability, experience, and interest. A student with the more abstractive ability and interest of the mathematician, therefore, may be viewed as having a higher level entering behavior than that of a student whose major interest and ability are in creating the visual, geometric forms of modern painting and sculpture. Although the model gives priority to the selection of instrumental objectives over the assessment of entering behavior, in practices these two components must interact. Depending on the requirement of the instructional situations, particularly on the entering behavior of the student, the classroom of the future will provide for more or less personal contact than the conventional classroom does now. Accordingly, the model implies a greater emphasis on teacher competence than on personal charisma without, of course, objecting to a useful combination of the two.

More simply, entering behavior describes the present status of the student’s knowledge and skill in reference to a future status the teacher wants him to attain. Entering behavior, therefore, is where the instruction must always begin.Terminal behavior is where the instruction concludes.. This way the teaching can be described as getting the student from where he is to where we would like him to be- as moving from entering to terminal behavior. Together descriptions of entering and terminal behavior define the limits of instructional responsibility for each degree of teaching.

Instructional Procedures

Instructional procedures describe the teaching process; most decisions a teacher makes are on these procedures. Proper management of this component results in those changes in student behavior which we call learning or achievement. Procedures must vary with the instructional objectives. Generally instructional procedures describe procedures for teaching skills, language, concepts, principles, and problem solving.

Performance assessment

Performance assessment is the process of measuring the student’s auxiliary and terminal performances during and at the end of instruction. Auxiliary performances are behaviors which must be acquired at the lower levels of a learning structure before the terminal performances are acquired at the higher levels. In the teaching of a principle, for example, the teacher must determine whether the student has acquired the component concepts, as auxiliary performances, before proceeding with the instruction which arranges these concepts in the proper relationship for the learning of the principle. Terminal performances, you already know, refer to the end products of instruction—usually verbal performances’ the emphasis on the measurement of both auxiliary and terminal performances means that you should not think of performance assessment as occurring only at the end of a unit or a course. The assessment can occur whenever the teacher or student needs information about the adequacy of the student’s present learning for subsequent instruction.

Performance assessment consists of tests and observations used to determine how well the student has achieved the instructional objectives. If performance assessment indicates that the student has fallen short of mastery or some lesser standard of achievement, one or all the preceding components of the basic teaching model may require adjustment. The feedback loops show how the information provided by performance assessment feeds back to each component.

The personality of the teacher is not the central element in the present conception of the teaching process. The model indicates that teaching includes a broad range of decision and practice- much of which requires little or no personal contact between teacher and student. The widespread use of technological devices, team teaching, and non-graded instruction will definitely modify the traditional nature of the personal contact between teacher and student. Depending on the requirement of the instructional situations, particularly on the entering behavior of the student, the classroom of the future will provide for more or less personal contact than the conventional classroom does now. Accordingly, the model implies a greater emphasis on teacher competence than on personal charisma without, of course, objecting to a useful combination of the two.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

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A component in the workplace environment that can cause injury,illness,or death. The damage to the environment is caused both by natural (Non Anthropogenic) and manmade (Anthropogenic) reasons. The natural impacts are non-preventable and on many occasions unpredictable. However knowledge of natural hazards is essential in order to take mitigated actions

so that loss of life and property can be minimized. On the other hand Anthropogenic detrimental impacts on environment are eminently preventable but only with a focused global effort.

Earthquakes

An earthquake is the sudden, rapid shaking of the earth, caused by the braking and shifting of subterranean rock as it releases strain that has accumulated over a long time. Earthquakes occur as the result of the release of pressure along a fault in the tectonic plate boundaries but can occur anywhere. Earthquakes last only few seconds but they cause extensive damage to buildings, gas and water pipes, power and communication lines, and roadways. They can also serve as triggers for several other natural hazards. In fact, the primary cause of damage in recent earthquakes is fire from damaged gas pipes and power lines. Slope failures are triggered by the energy release associated with earthquakes. When earthquakes occur in an ocean or large lake, a tsunami may form and flood surrounding coastlines. Earthquakes often occur along with volcanic activity, which results in a variety of additional threats.

Earthquakes simply demonstrate that the earth is consistently a changing system.  They general depict a built  up stress in the lithosphere  which occurs along its,  planar breaks in rock where there is displacement of the side relative to the  other. When the stress at last exceeds the rupture strength of the rock a sudden movement occurs to release the stress. This experience may be simply described  as earthquake or seismic slip.

The magnitude of most earthquakes is measured on the Richter scale, invented by Charles F. Richter in 1934. The Richter magnitude is calculated from the amplitude of the largest seismic wave recorded for the earthquake, no matter what type of wave was the strongest.

The Richter magnitudes are based on a logarithmic scale (base 10). What this means is that for each whole number you go up on the Richter scale, the amplitude of the ground motion recorded by a seismograph goes up ten times. Using this scale, a magnitude 5 earthquake would result in ten times the level of ground shaking as a magnitude 4 earthquake (and 32 times as much energy would be released). To give you an idea how these numbers can add up, think of it in terms of the energy released by explosives: a magnitude 1 seismic wave releases as much energy as blowing up 6 ounces of TNT. A magnitude 8 earthquake releases as much energy as detonating 6 million tons of TNT.

Landslide can be a serious secondary earthquake hazard in hilly areas.  Earthquakes are one of the major events that trigger slides on unstable slopes.  The best solution is not to build in such areas.

Volcanic Eruptions

Volcanoes are vents in the earth’s surface through which magma, gases, and other materials are discharged from the core. They are found primarily at tectonic plate boundaries. They also exist at hot spots, which are places in the earth’s crust where hot mantle plumes have broken through. Some volcanoes erupt explosively, while others erupt slowly. Explosive volcanoes present many potential threats including the release of toxic gases, flows containing fragments of hot rock and ash, fast moving clouds of extremely hot gases and fine ash and large volumes of ash. It is common for volcanoes to trigger other natural hazards like debris flows, earthquakes, floods, landslides and fires. Volcano and earthquake risk maps overlap considerably.

~lahar /ˈlɑːhɑr/ is a type of mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of pyroclastic material, rocky debris, and water. Lahars are extremely destructive: they can flow tens of meters per second, be 140 meters (460 ft) deep, and destroy any structures in their path1 Description

Lahars have the consistency, viscosity and approximate density of concrete: fluid when moving, solid at rest. Lahars can be huge. A lahar of sufficient size and intensity can erase virtually any structure in its path, and is capable of carving its own pathway, making the prediction of its course difficult. A lahar’s viscosity decreases with time, and can be further thinned by rain, but it nevertheless solidifies quickly when coming to a stop.

Lahars vary in size and speed. Small lahars less than a few meters wide and several centimeters deep may flow a few meters per second. Large lahars hundreds of meters wide and tens of meters deep can flow several tens of meters per second: much too fast for people to outrun.^[3] With the potential to flow at speeds up to 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph), and flow distances of more than 300 kilometres (190 mi), a lahar can cause catastrophic destruction in its path.

With regards to  environmental  control  there  is no known method  of  preventing  volcanic  eruption.  Similarly,  there  is  no  known  defense  against  the  pyroclastic  flows and comparatively little can be done  to protect standing crops and exposed  water supplies from air-fall tephra. Therefore, lava flows moving at comparatively  slow  speeds  are  the  volcanic  hazard  over  which  most  physical  control  can  be  exerted.

Three possible methods of diverting and controlling lava flows are, bombing ,  artificial Barriers  and water Sprays

Floods

Floods are high water levels above the banks of a stream channel, lakeshore, or ocean coast that submerge areas of land usually not submerged. They are natural, reoccurring events in every stream, lake, and coastal environment. A flood can be caused by unusually intense or prolonged precipitation, storms, dam collapses, etc. Since most of the world’s population lives on or near coasts and plains, floods are a threat to hundreds of millions of people. Floods can cause loss of life, extensive damage to property, contamination of drinking water, and destruction of crops and fields. They can also help produce rich soils for agriculture, which encourages people to live in floodplains. Floods occur in arid and wet environments, highlands and lowlands, and in both populated and unpopulated regions. They are less common in dry environments and highlands. Floods occur in many temperate regions around the world. However, floods can occur at any time of the year, depending on location. The timing of floods is largely dependent on climate and seasonal weather patterns. In India, floods are a common feature during monsoons.

Flood is referred to as a relatively high flow that over-tops the natural or artificial boundary of a water body. It is also regarded as  an over flow or inundation that  comes from a  river or other body of water and causes or threatens damage  or  simple as a  deluge or inundation . Flood can also be defined as the highest values of the stage or discharge of a stream during the water year.

There are  numerous factors  which may influence floods in any  stream. These are divided under three broad categories:

•  Climatic factors such as precipitation,

•  Interception and physical factors; and

•  Channel characteristics, including types and efficiency.

Of all environmental hazards, none is more paradoxical than floods. Simply  because it is the most frequently occurring natural hazard that causes the  greatest damage  as well as the most beneficial effect.

Cyclones, Hurricanes and Tornadoes

Tropical cyclones are greatly intensified low-pressure areas that spend most of their lives over the oceans. In the Atlantic Ocean, they are called hurricanes. In the Pacific Ocean, they are usually referred to as typhoons. Warm temperatures and moisture drive them. When a hurricane moves over land or cool water, it loses strength. Tropical storms become hurricanes once their winds exceed 74 mph (119 km h). In a hurricane, building doors and windows are frequently broken by debris picked up in the hurricane’s strong and sustained winds. These winds can rip roofs from buildings, topple trees, and damage power and communication lines. In some cases, hurricanes can produce tornado-like vortices (called “mini-swirls”), which can completely destroy buildings. Coastal flooding is a major threat in hurricanes, due to the combination of storm surges and torrential rain.

Storm surges are rises in ocean levels produced by the effects of high wind and low atmospheric pressure. Storm surges also increases coastal erosion, potentially resulting in slope failures. Hurricanes can even start fires by damaging power lines. Contamination of drinking water and disruption of utility services (such as electricity, communications, and sewer) are common occurrences during a hurricane.

Hurricanes are greatly intensified low-pressure cells born over the tropical oceans. They require vast amounts of warm, moist air to survive. Hurricanes lose strength over land or Cool Ocean water.

Tornadoes are fast rotating columns of air associated with severe thunderstorms. A thunderstorm can produce many tornadoes, and a tornado can have more than one vortex. Wind speeds as much as 450 km h are possible. These high winds can quickly destroy entire buildings and in some cases, entire communities. The debris carried by such high winds causes severe injury or death to people and other life. Hail is commonly associated with thunderstorms and is also capable of causing extensive damage in a very short time. Tornadoes move along the surface at up to 70 mph (113 km h) and remain on the ground for several minutes. Most tornadoes occur between the 4:00 P.M. and 6:00 P.M., when the lower atmosphere is most unstable. Many tornadoes also occur after sunset—these tornadoes can be very dangerous because they are difficult to see and people are less easily alerted.

Tsunamis

Seismic ocean waves are now commonly referred to as tsunamis (Japanese for “harbor waves”). A tsunami is traditionally defined as a series of ocean waves with very long wavelengths that can travel great distances. Tsunamis can also occur in large lakes. In deep oceans, tsunamis can reach speeds over 800 kph. Tsunami wave heights near a shore average 9 meters, but have been recorded over 30 meters. They can carry large ocean vessels inland, inundate coasts, and drag entire communities out to sea as they recede. Tsunamis can be generated by any event that displaces a large volume of ocean water, such as an earthquake, volcanic eruption or landslide. Tsunamis threaten coasts throughout the Pacific Ocean, which has frequent earthquakes. Although they are rare, Tsunamis do occur in the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and large lakes.

Snow and Ice

Snow and ice are well known hazards to those living in mountainous areas or regions north of about 35 degrees N latitude. Prolonged power failures, automobile accidents, transportation delays, damage to buildings, and dangerous walkways are often attributed to snow and ice during the winter months. Slippery surfaces and reduced visibility are responsible for many accidents.

Snow can be warm, causing wet and slushy conditions, or cold, creating dry and powdery conditions. The latter leads to blizzards and drifting when mixed with high winds. Blizzards can quickly reduce visibility to zero. Drifting can block roadways, airport runways, and even bury buildings. Both are often associated with low wind chills, which are dangerous to exposed skin, especially when wet from snow. In many mountainous regions, avalanches are a common hazard.

When large masses of mountain snow begin to melt in the spring, floods often become an imminent hazard to people living in valleys. The total amount of snow received at any location is dependent on temperature, atmospheric pressure, topography and proximity to moisture sources.

The snow avalanches are a special type of mass  movement. They are common features of mountainous terrain throughout arctic  and temperate regions wherever snow is deposited on slopes .

Finally  we  stressed  that  it  is  common  to  recognize  three  types  of  avalanche  motion they are;

•  Power avalanches are the most hazardous are formed of an aerosol of fine ,  diffused snow behaving like a body of dense gas.

•  Dry flowing avalanches are formed of dry snow travelling over steep or irregular   terrain with particles ranging in size from power grains to blocks of up to 0.2 m   diameter.

•  Wet-flower, avalanches occur mainly in the spring season and are compose d wet  snow formed either of rounded particles (from 0.1 m to several meters in diameter) or  a mass of sludge.

Thunderstorms

Thunderstorms are relatively small, organized parcels of warm and moist air that rise and produce lightning and thunder. They are one of nature’s ways of balancing the amount of energy in the atmosphere—it is estimated that over 40,000 thunderstorms occur each day around the world. Although most last only 30 minutes, thunderstorms can create several dangerous phenomena:

• Torrential rain produced by thunderstorms is usually intense, but short in duration— flash flooding is often associated with this type of precipitation. In fact, flooding is the greatest threat from thunderstorms; also, slope failures can be triggered by the intense precipitation from thunderstorms in areas with steep, unstable hillsides.
• High wind: Inside a thunderstorm, air rises and descends rapidly, transferring vast amounts of energy. Such movement is dangerous for airplanes. Winds at the surface beneath a thunderstorm can reach well over 80 kph.
• Hail falling at speeds of several meters per second can result in extensive damage to crops and property in just a few minutes and can injure or kill people and other organisms

• Lightning frequently starts fires, which threaten homes, businesses, and lives. Power and communication failures caused by lightning (as well as wind) can result in large scale disruption of everyday activities. down slope movement of

Land Slide

The large volumes of surface materials under gravitational influences are an important   environmental hazard, common in mountainous terrain. Rapid movements cause   most loss of the life and damage; including human-induced land subsidence, have less potential to kill but can be costly. Depending on the dormant material, these  movements  tend  to  be  grouped  into  landslides  (rock  and  soil)  or  avalanches  (snow and ice).

Types of landslide

There are two main types of landslide:

•  Rotational slides

•  Translational slides

Causes of landslides are;

• An increase in slope angle

• Removal of lateral support at the foot of a slope.

•  Additional  weight  placed  on  the  slope  by   the  dumping  of  waste   or  house  construction.

•  Removal  of  vegetation  by  wildfires  or  through  human  activities such as  logging,  overgrazing or construction.

• Local shocks and vibrations

Droughts

A drought is an extended period of depleted soil water. Drought occurs when more water is taken out of an area than is added to it. This is often the result of a combination of persisting high pressure over a region, which produces clear skies with little or no precipitation, and excessive use of water for human activities. Droughts can result in decreased crop yields, decreased drinking water quality and availability and food shortages. Thus, as population increases and the demand for food and water increases the probability of drought increases and the implications of drought become more and more serious. Also, when vegetation becomes dry during a drought, fire risk increases, threatening homes, crops, and lives. The greatest threat from drought occurs when agricultural regions receive very low rainfall, leading to plant desiccation. When this happens, crop yields decrease resulting in increased food prices, food shortages, and even famine.

Most agricultural crops are grown in the semi-arid and humid regions of the world. Water shortages in either of these regions can pose an immediate threat to agricultural productivity. With global climate change, droughts are expected to become a major problem for several agricultural regions. In semi-arid and arid regions, droughts commonly result in deteriorating drinking water quality and availability. Besides the immediate impacts associated with water shortages and poor water quality, delayed impacts (such as susceptibility to disease) are major problems in several less-developed regions of the world.

Drought has been described as an extended and continuous duration of very dry weather. This definition varies from country to country, since weather varies.

There are three types of drought are recognized:

(a)  total  drought  is  a  period  of  15  or  more  consecutive  days  with  a  rainfall  below 0.2mm;

(b)  partial drought has a duration of 29 successive days with an a mean rainfall  of 0.2 mm or less per day;

(c)  a dry spell has  a  duration  of  15 or more successive days, dur ing which the  rainfall does not exceed 1 mm per day.

Some of the features of drought were articulated as:

(a)  Low rainfall and high rainfall variability.

(b)  High evaporation and potential evapotranspiration rates

(c)  Generally persistent negative rainfall anomalies

(d)  Occasional torrential rains resulting in floods

(e)  Rapidly high erosive runoff especially on steep terrains

(f)  Sparse vegetation cover

(g)  Too little moisture for rain fed cultivation throughout

El Nino and La Nina

El Nino and La Nina are triggers for many natural hazards because they produce unusual weather throughout the world. The Earth’s oceans and atmosphere are closely connected and hence a change in one produces an immediate or delayed change in the other. El Nino involves the warming of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. This temperature change at the ocean’s surface causes the usual positions of the jet streams and pressure cells to shift.

This causes changes in the global weather patterns produces floods , droughts and other hazards, leading to thousands of deaths and property damages. A La Nina event usually occurs the year after the end of an El Nino event and involves abnormal cooling of the same ocean waters. This can also cause changes in atmospheric circulation, thereby altering weather patterns for many locations around the world.

Because El Nino and La Nina produce considerable changes in atmospheric circulation, the effects are noticeable globally. However, certain locations feel the effects of El Nino and La Nina more than others due to a variety of factors. El Nino events usually begin between January and March and peak during the month of December. Not every El Nino event is followed by a La Nina event. When it happens, the effects of La Nina are usually most noticeable between the months of December and January.

Fog

Fog is a cloud near the ground. A cloud is an area of condensed water droplets (or ice crystals in the upper atmosphere). The processes that produce clouds high above the ground also produce clouds near the surface. Fog forms when air is unable to hold all of the moisture

it contains. This happens when air is cooled to its dew point, or the amount of moisture in the air increases. Once air reaches its dew point, water vapor condenses onto very small particles forming tiny water droplets that comprise fog. Fog is a hazard because of reduction in visibility.

Airport delays, automobile accidents, shipwrecks, plane crashes, and many other transportation problems are frequently caused by fog. When air pollution (such as smoke) combines with fog, visibility decreases even more. Acid fog, resulting from the combination of air pollutants (such as nitrogen and sulfur oxides) with water droplets can create health problems, for people with respiratory problems. Fog can also be beneficial. Several species of plants depend on fog for moisture.

Fog can occur during any season and almost anywhere in the world. The following are common types of fog:

• Advection Fog: When warm, moist air is blown over a cold surface, the surface

can lower the temperature of the air to its dew point.

• Evaporation Fog: Water evaporates from the surface of streams, lakes, and oceans

and accumulates near the earth surface.

• Radiation (or Ground) Fog: Common on clear nights with little or no wind, this

type of fog is formed from the rapid cooling of the Earth’s surface in the absence

of clouds.

• Upslope Fog: Whenever air rises, it cools. If air is blown over high hills or mountains,

it may cool enough to reach its dew point.

Forest/Wild Fires

Wild land fires most commonly occur in semi arid and temperate regions having abundant vegetation and extensive dry periods. Fire is a potential hazard whenever vegetation desiccates. This often occurs as the result of drought. Fires occur less frequently in colder and wetter climates, Winds can increase a fire’s intensity while providing few escape routes. Lightning is a most common cause of wildfire during the growing season. Dry weather prior to thunderstorms during spring, summer, or fall increases the risk of a fire from lightning.

Reducing the Impact of Natural Hazards

There are information and techniques designed to minimize the effects of even  the most sudden and forceful of hazardous events and prevent than causing a  disaster.   But in some instances the situation itself cannot be avoided, construction measures and location decisions can help save lives and avoid  damage. In some instances, such as flooding, the integration of hazard mitigation  measures into development planning and investment projects may make it  possible to avoid the hazards entirely.

Mitigation  measure  is  better  seen  as  a  fundamental investment,  essential  to  all development  projects  in  high-risk  areas,  and   not  as  a  luxury  that  may  not  be affordable. The  vulnerability  of  many  places   around  the  world  to  hurricanes, earthquakes,  volcanic  eruptions,  flooding,  or   drought  is  widely  recognized.

Environmental  planners  should  not  ask  the  question  whether  these  events  will happen, but what may occur when they do.   The normal single-sector  planning technique can no longer maximize the benefits  of mitigation methods and may, in fact, increase the risk exposure of people and  their  property.  Since  the  orthodox  development  project  often  represents  an  isolated intervention into complex and long- standing natural and socioeconomic   processes, an advance in one area may not be accompanied by needed change in another.  When natural  events  subsequently  exert  pressure,  the  fruits  of  the project  may  be  lost  to a  disaster  cause d by the  deterioration of the  natural and human  environment  related,  in  turn,  to  the   project  itself  (Hogan  &  Marandola,  2007).

Environmentally  integrated  development  planning,  relatively  implies,  a multicultural  approach.  It  accounts  both  for   a  change  in  associated  sectors  that share a defined physical space and for the changing relationships between sectors as  the  result  of  an  intervention.  Underlying the  integrated  approach  is  the assumption that change  is organic  and that  an initiative in one sector affects  the region as a whole.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Pythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism.

Born: 570 BC, Samos, Greece

Died: 495 BC, Metapontum, Italy

Full name: Pythagoras of Samos

Spouse: Theano

Children: Damo, Myia, Telauges, Arignote

There is geometry in the humming of the strings; there is music in the spacing of the spheres.

The thinkers before Pythagoras were, interested in the problem of the essence of things. What, they asked, is the stuff of which the world is composed? They regarded it as a concrete, determinate substance, like water or air, or as something from which such elements are differentiated. We come now to a school of philosophers who turned their attention particularly to the question of form or relation. As mathematicians they were interested in quantitative relations, which are measurable, and began to speculate upon the problem of the uniformity and regularity in the world ,attempting to explain this fact by making an entity of number  and setting it up as the principle of all being.

Like Thales, Pythagoras is rather known for mathematics than for philosophy. It is stated that he was a disciple of Anaximander, his astronomy was the natural development of Anaximander’s. Also, the way in which the Pythagorean geometry developed also bears witness to its descent from that of Miletos.

After Pythagoras introduced the idea of eternal recurrence into Greek thought, which was apparently motivated by his studies of earlier Egyptian scriptures, the idea soon became popular in Greece. It was Pythagoras’ ambition to reveal in his philosophy the validity and structure of a higher order, the basis of the divine order, for which souls return in a constant cycle.

“Pythagoras believed in metempsychosis and thought that eating meat was an abominable thing, saying that the souls of all animals enter different animals after death. He himself used to say that he remembered being, in Trojan times, Euphorbus, Panthus’ son who was killed by Menelaus. They say that once when he was staying at Argos he saw a shield from the spoils of Troy nailed up, and burst into tears. When the Argives asked him the reason for his emotion, he said that he himself had borne that shield at Troy when he was Euphorbus. They did not believe him and judged him to be mad, but he said he would provide a true sign that it was indeed the case: on the inside of the shield there had been inscribed in archaic lettering EUPHORBUS. Because of the extraordinary nature of his claim they all urged that the shield be taken down – and it turned out that on the inside the inscription was found.” (Diogenes Laertius)

This is how Pythagoras came to mathematics. It could be said that Pythagoras saw the study of mathematics as a purifier of the soul, just like he considered music as purifying. Pythagoras and his disciples connected music with mathematics and found that intervals between notes can be expressed in numerical terms. They discovered that the length of strings of a musical instrument corresponds to these intervals and that they can be expressed in numbers. The ratio of the length of two strings with which two tones of an octave step are produced is 2:1.

Music was not the only field that Pythagoras considered worthy of study; in fact he saw numbers in everything. He was convinced that the divine principles of the universe, though imperceptible to the senses, can be expressed in terms of relationships of numbers. He therefore reasoned that the secrets of the cosmos are revealed by pure thought, through deduction and analytic reflection on the perceptible world.

The Pythagoreans take note of the fact of form and relation in the world ; they find measure, order, proportion, and uniform recurrence, which can be expressed in numbers. Pythagorean without number, they reasoned, there can be no  such relations and uniformities, no order, no law  hence number must lie at the basis of everything; numbers must be the true realities, the substances and grounds of things, and everything else an expression of numbers. They made entities of numbers, just as many persons to-day make entities of the laws of nature, speaking of them as though they were the causes of whatever happens. In , their delight over the discovery that there is a numerical relation, for example, between the length of the string and the pitch of the tone, they called number, which is only a symbol or expression of the relation, the cause of the relation, and placed number behind phenomena as their basal principle and ground. This eventually led to the famous saying that “all things are numbers.” Pythagoras himself spoke of square numbers and cubic numbers, and we still use these terms, but he also spoke of oblong, triangular, and spherical numbers. He associated numbers with form, relating arithmetic to geometry. His greatest contribution, the proposition about right-angled triangles, sprang from this line of thought:

Now if number is the essence of things, then whatever is true of number will be true of things. The Pythagoreans, therefore, devoted themselves to the study of the countless peculiarities discoverable in numbers, and ascribed these to the universe at large. Numbers are odd and even ; the odd cannot be divided by two, the even can; hence the former are limited, the latter unlimited. Hence the odd and the even, the finite and the infinite, the limited and unlimited, constitute the essence or reality. So, too, nature is a union opposite, of the odd and the even, the limited and unlimited. A table of ten such opposites is offered: limited and unlimited; od^ and even; one and many ; right and left ; male and female ; rest and motion ;straight and crooked; light and darkness; good and bad; square and rectangle. Each of the numbers from one to ten has its peculiarity.

The corporeal world is also numerical, being based on the unit. The point is one, the line two, the figure three, the solid four. Again, earth is a cube; fire, a tetrahedron; air, an octahedron, water, an icosahedron; and so on. That is, the lines and surfaces of bodies were conceived as entities having an independent existence; for there can be no bodies without lines and surfaces, whereas lines and surfaces can be thought without bodies. The spatial forms are the causes of bodies, and since these forms

The same reasoning was applied to non-corporeal things: love, friendship, justice, virtue, health, etc., are based on numbers; love and friendship being expressed by the number eight, because love and friendship are harmony and the octave is harmony.

The Pythagorean School also gave its attention to the study of astronomy and furnished a number of noted astronomers. In the center of the universe, which forms a sphere?

they placed the central fire; around it the planets revolve, turned by means of transparent moving spheres to which they are attached. The fixed stars are fastened to the highest arch of heaven, which revolves around the central fire in the course of 36,000 years; below this follow, in concentric spheres, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus, the sun, moon, and earth. But since ten is the perfect number, there must be ten heavenly bodies; hence, the Pythagoreans place between the earth and the central fire a counter-earth, which screens the

earth from the rays of the central fire. The earth and counter earth daily revolve around the central fire in such a way that the earth always turns the same face to the counter-earth and

the central fire, for which reason we, living on the other side of the earth, do not see the central fire. The sun, which encircles the central fire once in the course of the year, reflects the light of this body. The movement of the spheres represents an octave and is, therefore, a harmony; since every sphere produces its own tones, the harmony of the spheres results.

Fantastic though these astronomical notions may seem, they paved the way for the construction of the heliocentric theory, which was offered in antiquity by Aristarchus of Samos, about280 B.C. In the course of time, the counter-earth and central fire were given up; and Hicetas and Ecphantus taught theaxial rotation of the earth. Heraclides found reason to reject the view that all the planets revolve around the earth in concentric spheres, and connected their movements with the movement of the sun. Aristarchus concluded from the larger size of the sun that it did not revolve around the earth and made the earth move round the sun.

This shows how Pythagoras’ formulation immediately led to a new mathematical problem, namely that of incommensurables. At his time the concept of irrational numbers was not known and it is uncertain how Pythagoras dealt with the problem. We may surmise that he was not too concerned about it. His religion, in absence of theological explanations, had found a way to blend the “mystery of the divine” with common-sense rational thought.

From Pythagoras we observe that an answer to a problem in science may give raise to new questions. For each door we open, we find another closed door behind it. Eventually these doors will be also be opened and reveal answers in a new dimension of thought. A sprawling tree of progressively complex knowledge evolves in such manner. This Hegelian recursion, which is in fact a characteristic of scientific thought, may or may not have been obvious to Pythagoras. In either way he stands at the beginning of it.

Pythagoras believed:

• All things are numbers. Mathematics is the basis for everything, and geometry is the highest form of mathematical studies. The physical world can understood through mathematics.
• The soul resides in the brain, and is immortal. It moves from one being to another, sometimes from a human into an animal, through a series of reincarnations called transmigration until it becomes pure. Pythagoras believed that both mathematics and music could purify.
• Numbers have personalities, characteristics, strengths and weaknesses.
• The world depends upon the interaction of opposites, such as male and female, lightness and darkness, warm and cold, dry and moist, light and heavy, fast and slow.
• Certain symbols have a mystical significance.
• All members of the society should observe strict loyalty and secrecy.