204 



KNOWLEDGE 



[Apbil 6, 1883. 



they havo actually an intcrinncliatc autumn suit of ashy 

 grey, which helps yet further to conceal them among the 

 sere and ashen foliage of the Sc^andinavian November. The 

 ptarmigan, in short, is a strictly practical l>ird, who cares 

 very little for personal adornment, hut manifests a strong 

 hereditary reluctance to he eaten up hy any prowling hawk 

 or falcon of the neighbourhood. 



SUN WORSHIP. 



Bv Richard A. Proctor. 



Expahded from the openin<i words of Lecture on the Sa/i, at St- 

 James'3 Hall, Wednesday, March 28, 1883. 



IN old times, man worshipped the sun as a god. They 

 knelt in adoration before his glorious orb, and raised 

 their voices in supplication to him, as to a being who could 

 hear their prayers and grant them what they wished. 

 How widely prevalent that religion of sun worship was, 

 we cannot now tell ; but there are traces in the purer 

 religions of later times, of that old system. Even in our 

 own time, (juite a number of ceremonial observances can 

 be referred back to the time when the rising and setting 

 sun, was regarded as a god, when the annual movement of 

 the sun, carrying him now below, now above the equator was 

 followed as the motion of a deity, now withdrawing, anon 

 renewing his favouring glances, while the critical epochs when 

 the sun-god was passing over the equator ascendingly or 

 descendingly were celebrated in religious festivals, of which 

 the Feast of the Passover (and our own Easter* in its 

 seasonal or astronomical aspect) and the Feast of Taber- 

 nacles are adumbrations, though associated now with 

 purified religious ideas. We are apt to smile at those old 

 faiths, if we do not utterly contemn them ; but in a sense 

 they were reasonable enough at the time when they pre- 

 vailed. If under any circumstances men might forget the 

 Creator and worship the creature, it was in the case of 

 sun-worship. To say truth, there is no apter emblem of 

 Deity than the sun. Too glorious to be regarded save 

 as through a veil, the sun is the source of every 

 form of force existing on this earth. His might 

 is exerted for our benefit, even when we see him 

 not. In the night hours, as well as throughout the 

 day (when he seems to " rejoice as a giant to run his 

 course "), the sun is at work holding not only the earth, 

 but his whole family of planets, at their due distance to 

 receive his rays. When he is hidden behind dense clouds, 

 when darkness encompasses the earth, he is still at work 

 for us. Nay, the very clouds which hide his rays are due 

 to his labour on our behalf ; even when their gloom seems 

 greatest they are preparing, under his beneficent beams, to 

 drop fatness on the earth. Science, however, which has 

 shown the sun as the true source of clouds and rain, hail 

 and snow, wind and storm, of all the material forces (once 

 themselves worshipped) at work in the air, on the sea, and 

 on land, the nourisher of vegetation and of every form of life, 

 shows also that he works according to natural laws. Sun- 

 worship is shown by science to be a gross materialistic 

 religion. It has been rejected as unworthy of reasoning 

 men, understanding what the sun really is. In this, science 

 has done what over and over again science has had to do, 

 and has been reproached for doing — until, with the 

 advance of knowledge, it has been seen that in pointing 

 out what is material and unworthy in the cruder forms 

 of worship, science has not been materialistic, but 

 the reverse. Science leaves what lies at the back 



* The word Easter is, in its real origin, aa closely related to sun 

 nioToraents as the word East. 



of 'each even of these imperfect religions, and tV> 

 mystery which must exist in all forms of worship, 

 if they are to be true for those who hold them. Nor need 

 we fear that, as science shows the real nature of what in 

 earlier times had been mysterious, the mysteries of 

 Nature will be rendered fewer or less impressive. On the 

 contrary, behind each law which science has interpreted, 

 each mystery explained (if in truth science can be said 

 really to explain anything) are even found greater 

 mysteries, inasmuch that it may be doubted whether the 

 human mind, as at present constituted, could bear the con- 

 templation of the overwhelming mysteries lying(we maybe 

 well assured) behind those which science now confronts 

 — the mysteries of universal attraction and universal re- 

 pulsion, of the infinitely great and of the infinitely Uttle, 

 of infinite space and infinite time, of infinite variety, and, 

 in fine, of infinite power. 



"OUR BODIES:" 



SHORT PAPERS ON PHYSIOLOGY. 

 By Dr. Andrew Wilson, F.R.S.E., kc. 



Xo. IX.— ABSORPTION AND BLOOD REPAIR. 



DIGESTION we saw in our last paper to be that 

 function through the operation of which food was 

 chemically and physically altered and fitted for being added 

 to our bodily substance. This bodily substance, indeed, 

 the food, in its form, is destined to renew and repair. The 

 digestive, system, moreover, we saw to be simply a long 

 tube. As the food passes through the various portions of 

 this tube, there are poured upon it secretions or fluids, 

 manufactured by fjlands. The lifer pours hile on the 

 food, the pancreas supplies svieetbread-juice, the stomach- 

 (/lands gastric juice, and so on. The end of digestion finds 

 the food passing along the intestine and converted into 

 a milk-like fluid called chyle. If we examine chyle under 

 the microscope, we find that it contains certain globules or 

 corpuscles (called clujle-corpuscles), which are not to be 

 distinguished from the ivhite glohit,hs of the blood. Under 

 the microscope, then, this chyle certainly resembles blood 

 in one particular. If we analy.se chyle, we may find that 

 chemistry strengthens the evidence of the microscope. ^^ e 

 discover that chyle dift'ers from blood chiefly in its con- 

 taining a higher percentage of water than the latter fluid ; 

 in its want of coloured elements ; in its larger proportion 

 of fats, derived from the food ; and in its smaller percentage 

 of albumen. 



Another fluid exists in our bodies called lymi)h : and it 

 is necessary that we should study for a moment the re- 

 semblance of lymph and chyle. When the smallest l)lood- 

 vessels of the body are watched, there is seen to lie an 

 incessant straining, through their thin walls, of the fluid 

 part of the blood. This "transudation" (or straining 

 through) has, of course, the result of bathing the most 

 minute cells and elements of our bodies in the fluid (or 

 b/tnph) which is destined for their nourishment. After the 

 fluid part of the blood has thus nourished the tissues and 

 parts, it becomes charged with certain waste matters. 

 Were it allowed to accumulate in the body (as it does in 

 certain cases of disease), we should have fluid remaining 

 in our tissues. In a word, we should become " dropsical." 

 In health, however, nature provides that the lymph which 

 has escaped from the vessels will be conveyed away from ■ 

 the tissues. For this purpose a series of natural drainage- 

 tubes exist in the shape of absorbents or lymphatics. These i 

 are thin-walled vessels, branching out in every part of the 



