been a phenomenon since the Middle Ages as the government, religion, and economics played larger roles in day-to-day life. In Sauter's article "Clockwatchers and Stargazers: Time Discipline in Early Modern Berlin", he argues that time discipline came from the streets, and was part of the rise of "local knowledge" as public clocks were used by public event planners. People began to learn where clocks were located and which social groups used which ones. Furthermore, Sauter argues that time discipline is not "externally imposed" on people, but "a standard that is determined by people with specialized knowledge and skills". Prior to the rise of mechanical timekeeping, clocks were based on the easily accessed sun, and after 1800 precise timekeeping again returned to the Earth's position in relationship to the stars, as measured by scientists using specialized instruments. The natural world In societies based around agriculture, hunting, and other pursuits that involve human interaction with the natural world, time discipline is a matter governed by astronomical and biological factors. Specific times of day or seasons of the year are defined by reference to these factors, and measured, to the extent that they need measuring, by observation. Different peoples' needs with respect to these things mean sharply differing cultural perceptions of time. For example, it surprises many non-Muslims that the Islamic calendar is entirely lunar and makes no reference at all to the seasons; the desert-dwelling Arabs who devised it were nomads rather than agriculturalists, and a calendar that made no reference to the seasons was no inconvenience for most of them. In Western societies In more urban societies, some of these natural phenomena were no longer at hand, and most were of much less consequence to the inhabitants. Artificial means of dividing and measuring time were needed. Plautus complained of the social effect of the invention of such divisions in his lines complaining of the sundial: The gods confound the man who first found outHow to distinguish hours! Confound him, too,Who in this place set up a sun-dial,To cut and hack my days so wretchedlyInto small portions. When I was a boyMy belly was my sun-dial; one more sure,Truer, and more exact than any of them.This dial told me when 'twas proper timeTo go to dinner, when I had aught to eat.But now-a-days, why, even when I have,I can't fall-to, unless the sun give leave.The town's so full of these confounded dials,The