512 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[June 12, 1885. 



How is it that persons, whose whole life passed in the hypnotic 

 state may be measnred by a few weeks at the outside, are able to 

 carry on a conversation ? 



There is a class of phenomena which seems to bear on the question. 

 For instance, I have an appointment at noon. About half -past eleven 

 I am walking conversing with a friend, and take out my watch and 

 look at it. Jly friend asks mo the time, and I reply by again 

 taking out my watch to see. There is nolnimotism in such a case, 

 I imagine. Is not the explanation this ? Jly attention is just a 

 little divided. I am listening to my friend's conversation and following 

 it ; at the same time I am nervous about missing my appointment. 

 I look at my watch, and at once see I have plenty of time, but 

 notice no more. Here is another case somewhat similar. I am a 

 schoolmaster looking over a boy's exercise ; another boy suddenly 

 asks me " what is 5 times 4, sir." I answer immediately 20. In a 

 few seconds I say, " What did yon ask me ? " All I am conscious 

 of is that I have answered something, but I feel sure the inactive 

 half of my cerebrum has not advanced as far as this in its multi- 

 plication table, and, as a matter of fact, I have answered very 

 advanced questions in a similar manner, questions the answer of 

 which I have had to check on paper. For the present, I must here 

 leave the subject, but I hope to return to it. 



Jos. W. AlEXANDEK. 



CUCKOOS. 



[1754] — I have not at Pomic heard the cuckoo more or less 

 than usual : but I never heard fewer nightingales : and was 

 wondering the other day if they knew it would be so cold here, 

 and had stopped short on the road. 



You cite a rhymed proverb which should be thus : 

 " In April 

 Come he will : 

 He in May 

 Sings all day." 

 So "least said soonest mended" arose when we pronounced 

 otherwise — 



" Leiist sayed 

 Soonest mended." Hallyards. 



COSMICAL MOVEMENTS. 



[1735] — " Hallyards " in letter 1723, cannot conceive how a star, 

 journeying through space, can avoid an orbit. The Law of Gravity, 

 he considers, demands, — that the nearest larger body must exert a 

 certain pull, which, however slight, must be sufficient to give a 

 curvature to its progression, which means eventually, a cii'cular or 

 elliptical orbit. In other words : he doubts the possibility of a star 

 to travel in a straight line. The whole question, I think, yields to 

 a very simple explanation. lu practical astronomy, our capacity to 

 discriminate finely between a curved, and a straight line is limited. 

 In the first place : the orbit of a globe may be so large, that all pos- 

 sible investigations are confined to the consideration of merely a 

 small portion of its course. For example — Our sun and its entire 

 system, according to recent observations are travelling en tnasse, 

 towards a particular point in the constellation Hercules. Whether 

 this direction proceeds in a straight line, or whether it forms a 

 small portion of a gigantic revolution, cannot be ascertained, be- 

 catise of the magnitude of the subject, and the enormous lapse of 

 time which would be requisite to make decisive calculations. In 

 the second place : Since the ellipse of orbits vary greatly in length 

 and breadth, it is not only possible, but probable, than an orbit 

 may be so narrow in it's ellipse that it will be found impossible to 

 distinguish it from a straight line. If we suppose an ideal system, 

 in which a sidereal body passes at right angles, between two larger 

 bodies, these latter being of equal weight, eqtiidistant from the 

 first, and having motions so balanced, that the attraction felt by the 

 interloper is equal on either hand, this intermediate body, would 

 move in a straight line, with progressive and retrogade motions, 

 we are not warranted in assuming, that even in the vast magnitude 

 of the universe such a delicate adjustment dooi exist, a single grain 

 of sand added to either of the larger bodies, would actually give the 

 central orb a curved motion (in proportion to the weight added) 

 but — how could we guage the curvature. 



Your correspondent's idea, that gravity and other kindred forces 

 may act only within certain bounds reminds me of the old paradox 

 of Achilles and the tortoise : — The warlike " son of Peleus," we are 

 told, once started in pursuit of a tortoise, and, although, by travel- 

 ling twice as fast as the slow-paced reptile, he succeeded in halvina 

 the distance hetwecn them at the end of eveiy second, he was never 

 able to overtake it. Truly : neither Achilles nor the tortoise could 

 attain a distance twice that which seperated them at the start. 



" The strongest magnet will not attract the smallest particles of 

 Iron beyond certain limits " on what does he base this conclusion ? 

 at what distance is the compass needle unaffected by the poles ? 



Many scientific men are of the opinion that the regions of space 

 are traversed by magnetic currents, and there is much evidence 

 to support this theory; Variations of the compass-needle coincide 

 with disturbances in the solar orb, and the phenomena of light itself 

 are believed by many to be associated with magnetism. 



Alex. Mackie. 



[I print Mr. Mackie's letter just as it stands. His dynamics 

 are a little funny in' connection with the body approaching the 

 centre of gravity of a system of two great orbs. — Ed.] 



"THE PURE WELL OF ENGLISH UNDEFILED." 



[175G] — I regret that you should have given the sanction of 

 your approval to the present fashionable affectation of placing the 

 article " an " before an aspirated " h." It may be possibly easier 

 to pronounce than " a," but is none the less a defiance of one of 

 the primary rules of English gramm.tr. What a pity it is that 

 just when the defective sounding of " h " is beginning to be in a 

 fair way of being remedied, educated men should arbiti'arily intro- 

 duce a fresh stumbling-block ! It only our reformers would adopt 

 as their basis increased " consistency " in the language, how easily 

 would its simplification come about. There is no reason whatever 

 why the " h" should not be sounded in every word in the language 

 except when it is impossible, namely, in the four words, hour, heir, 

 honour, and liouest, and even in these, public opinion might be 

 educated to aspirate them. 



With consistence as the chief aim, other similar reforms would 

 soon follow. The unpronounceable "employe" and "envelope" 

 would give place to "employee" and "envelope," while even 

 " attache " and " fiance " might in time be Anglicised. 



"Acoustics" would give way to "acustics," " cainozoic " to 

 " ca'nozoic " or " cenozoic," and " schism " and " schedule " would 

 be pronounced as spelt — i.e., like scheme. 



Any number of other alterations equally easy, and only requiring 

 an established criterion, would also follow, and I trust your 

 'influence will in future be tised to help them on. 



E. A. Pnipsox. 



" EASE 'ER— STOP 'ER." 



[1757] — In my letter "Ultra-Gas" p. 465, there is, strange to 

 say, only one misprint — in spite of very bad writing — but that one 

 is a crusher. I wrote " in certain cases there is now attraction, 

 now repuUion." This mtist have seemed impossible English to 

 your compositor, or corrector ; so he substitutes " «o " for the first 

 now, and nor for the second. YoiU' readers must have been 

 puzzled. 



"Was that one of David's psalms, .Tohn?" said the parson to 

 the clerk. " No, indeed, sir — a something better than Bavii — 'twas 

 a piece of my own." 



There are several in "Beast-Language" p. 466, as " mere-pork" 

 for "more-pork," "ever" for "even"; but the worst crime of 

 proof-readers is the arrogant alteration of stops. There is not one 

 person in five hundred that can punctuate a common private letter, 

 either in England or France ; and I claim to be of the minority. 

 Punctuation is not yet six centuries old, and is a very doubtful 

 good, since even authorities differ on it. Lawyers never punctuate, 

 holding that the sense of an instrument depends entirely on the 

 words. Still, stops are a great help in reading; but then they 

 should be logically used. I wrote " The katy-did is another 

 example, from the insect world." Had I not wished to be as brief 

 as possible, I should have written " thi^ time fallen from," &c. I 

 economised space by omitting those words and placing a comma. 

 This your printer omits, thus making nonsense, because it was the 

 only example from the insect-world which I cited. Again, I wrote, 

 " Surely the first called bai-baroi must have," <tc. This is defiled 

 by commas so placed as to make me say that the first (men ?) were 

 called harbaroi. There are other stops powdered quite wi-ongli,- 

 over what I wrote ; but these I omit, since they only seem to show 

 me ignorant, and not absolutely irrational. 



Misprints easily corrigible by readers may be safely left alone 

 but there is one in my letter (1721) "you. Sir, exorcised this as 

 trenching on theology." This may engender the erroneous notion 

 that you salute all orthodoxy with a " Vade retro, Satana" and 

 sprinkle it with holy water — (water is the base of ink) : even as 

 those Parisian lunatics, the new Antideists, who proscribe God to 

 the extent of fining each other for saying " Adieu ! " 



I had written "excised" — "cut oat" would have been better. 

 I do not think excise is English in that sense ; incise is ; but decido 

 makes decide. Hallyakds. 



P.S. — Some (c.ri. Leibnitz) hold that matter can exist without 

 extension. If so, there is nothing impossible in the christian 

 dogma of the pleni-presence of Christ's body. This, I thought, — a 

 matter of pure fact — could regularly be discussed in K,\owledge. 

 — H. 



