35 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Animals 



untary actions. No one will, of course, deny 

 that reflex movements may also be observed 

 from the first, especially among the more 

 complexly organized animals. It must not, 

 however, be forgotten that these purposive 

 reflexes have become possible through an 

 organization acquired in the course of 

 countless generations. WUNDT Psychology, 

 lect. 15, p. 226. (Son. & Co., 1896.) 



174. ANIMALS NOT UNDERSTOOD 

 WITHOUT STUDY OF ENVIRONMENT 



The fact is, no animal can be correctly ap- 

 preciated by us if we do not well understand 

 the circumstances of its being, its surround- 

 ing conditions. Each creature's structure 

 is an expression and manifestation of that 

 interplay of influences and activities be- 

 tween its own being and its environment, 

 which constitutes its life. MIVAET Types 

 of Animal Life, ch. 9, p. 248. (L. B. & Co., 

 1893.) 



175. ANIMALS OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

 SAME AS MODERN Five Thousand Years 

 Have Made No Change. Our domestic ani- 

 mals have always followed man in the prog- 

 ress of civilization. Wherever the traces 

 of civilization are found, there are found 

 also traces of the presence of animals not 

 only domesticated, but also wild. No civi- 

 lization has left us more interesting traces 

 in this respect than that of Egypt; on the 

 Egyptian monuments are represented in 

 sculptures and drawings, and in the cata- 

 combs are preserved in the shape of mum- 

 mies, animals which lived many thousand 

 years ago. Some of those relics, which have 

 come down to us, are unquestionably nearly 

 five thousand years old. They form a very 

 interesting basis by which to ascertain to 

 what extent animals may change under the 

 different circumstances in which they live. 

 The most careful comparison which has 

 been made between the skeletons of the 

 animals preserved in mummies, and those 

 recently killed in the valley of the Nile, 

 has not shown the slightest difference be- 

 tween them. AGASSIZ Structure of Animal 

 Life, lect. 3, p. 48. (S., 1886.) 



176. ANIMALS, PERFECTION OF 



Enforced by the Death Penalty Nothing 

 That Lives Can Be Wholly a Failure All 

 in the Long Run Advancing Natural Selec- 

 tion. By placing the death penalty upon 

 the slightest shortcoming, natural selection 

 so discourages imperfection as practically 

 to eliminate it from the world. The fact that 

 any given animal is alive at all is almost a 

 token of its perfectness. Nothing living can 

 be wholly a failure; for the moment that it 

 fails, it ceases to live. Something more fit, 

 were it even by a hairbreadth, secures its 

 place; so that all existing lives must, with 

 reference to their environment, be the best 

 possible lives. Natural selection is the means 

 employed in nature to bring about perfect 

 health, perfect wholeness, perfect adapta- 

 tion, and in the long run the ascent of all 



living things. DRUMMOND Ascent of Man, 

 p. 208. (J. P., 1900.) 



177. ANIMALS, PRIMEVAL, DID NOT 

 NEED MOTHERS Not Children, but Mere 

 Offspring The Early World Bleak and 

 Loveless. The truth is, Nature so made 

 animals in the early days that they did not 

 need mothers. The moment they were born 

 they looked after themselves, and were per- 

 fectly able to look after themselves. Moth- 

 ers in these days would havejbeen a super- 

 fluity. All that Nature worked" at at that 

 dawning date was maternity in a physical 

 sense motherhood came as a later and a 

 rarer growth. The children of those days 

 were not really children at all; they were 

 only offspring, springers off, deserters from 

 home. At one bound they were out into life 

 on their own account, and she who begat 

 them knew them no more. That early world, 

 therefore, for millions and millions of years 

 was a bleak and loveless world. It was a 

 world without children and a world without 

 mothers. It is good to realize how heart- 

 less Nature was till these arrived. DRUM- 

 MOND Ascent of Man, p. 270. ( J. P., 1900.) 



178. ANIMALS, PROTECTION OF, BY 

 NON-CONDUCTING CLOTHING Utility of 

 Woolen Garments. It is the imperfect con- 

 ductivity of woolen textures which renders 

 them so eminently fit for clothing. They 

 preserve the body from sudden accessions 

 and from sudden losses of heat. The same 

 quality of non-conductivity manifests it- 

 self when we wrap flannel round a block 

 of ice. The ice thus preserved is not easily 

 melted. In the case of the human body, on 

 a cold day, the woolen clothing prevents 

 the transmission of motion from within 

 outwards. In the case of the ice, on a warm 

 day, the selfsame fabric prevents the trans- 

 mission of motion from without inwards. 

 Animals which inhabit cold climates are 

 furnished by nature with their necessary 

 clothing. Birds especially need this pro- 

 tection, for they are still more warm- 

 blooded than the mammalia. They are fur- 

 nished with feathers, and between the feath- 

 ers the interstices are filled with down, the 

 molecular constitution and mechanical tex- 

 ture of which render it, perhaps, the worst 

 of all conductors. Here we have another 

 example of that harmonious relation of life 

 to the conditions of life which is incessantly 

 presented to the student of natural science. 

 TYNDALL Heat a Mode of Motion, lect. 9, 

 p. 256. (A., 1900.) 



179. ANIMALS, SURRENDER OF, TO 



MAN Submission of Dog, Sheep, and Goat, 

 Llama, Camel, Horse, Ass, Elephant, and 

 Cow. By and by they turned the artillery 

 of nature on herself. The dog raised a flag of 

 truce and came in to join the hosts of man 

 against the rest. The mountain-sheep and 

 the wild goat descended from their rocky 

 fortresses, gave up the contest, and sur- 

 rendered skins and fleece and flesh and milk 



