Action 

 Activity 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



given the order several times with a stern 

 face, he decided to make a spring into the 

 air, but barked loudly at me afterwards, as 

 tho to complain of the absolute absurdity 

 of my command. When I had repeated 

 the experiment a number of times, the 

 animal came to respond at once by spring- 

 ing into the air, but never failed to protest 

 by growling and barking. The word of 

 command aroused the memorial idea, and 

 this was sufficient to arouse the action pro- 

 duced by the actual presentation of the 

 stick; while the feeling of contrast between 

 idea and object, and of the purposelessness 

 of the act gave rise to unpleasurable emo- 

 tions conflicting with the dog's habitual 

 obedience. WUNDT Psychology, lect. 24, p. 

 356. (Son. & Co., 1896.) 



28. ACTION OF EXISTING CAUSES 

 PROVED FOR THE PAST Lyell Trans- 

 forms Geology. He completely refuted 

 Cuvier's history of creation with its myth- 

 ical revolutions, and established in its place 

 the constant and slow transformation of the 

 earth's crust by the continued action of 

 forces, which are still working on the 

 earth's surface, viz. : the movement of water 

 and the volcanic fluid of the interior of 

 earth. Lyell thus demonstrated a continu- 

 ous and uninterrupted connection of the 

 whole history of the earth, and he proved it 

 so irrefutably, and established so convinc- 

 ingly the supremacy of the " existing 

 causes," that is, of the causes which are 

 still active in the transformation of the 

 earth's crust, that geology in a short time 

 completely renounced Cuvier's -hypothesis. 

 HAECKEL History of Creation, vol. i, ch. 6, 

 p. 132. (K. P. & Co., 1899.) 



29. ACTION, RIGHT, TENDS TO 

 RIGHT FEELING -Forced Cheerfulness Will 

 Conquer Depression. There is no more 

 valuable precept in moral education than 

 this, as all who have experience know: if 

 we wish to conquer undesirable emotional 

 tendencies in ourselves, we must assidu- 

 ously, and in the first instance cold-blood- 

 edly, go through the outward movements of 

 those contrary dispositions which we prefer 

 to cultivate. The reward of persistency will 

 infallibly come, in the fading out of the sul- 

 lenness or depression, and the advent of real 

 cheerfulness and kindliness in their stead. 

 Smooth the brow, brighten the eye, contract 

 the dorsal rather than the ventral aspect of 

 the frame, and speak in a major key, pass 

 the genial compliment, and your heart must 

 be frigid indeed if it do not gradually thaw ! 

 JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 25, p. 463. 

 (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



30. ACTIONS GOOD OR BAD IN THEM- 

 SELVES Harmony or Discord with Nature 

 Responsibility Dependent on Knowledge. 

 Every act must have its own relation to the 

 future. Every act must be either innocent, 

 or beneficent, or hurtful in its ultimate ten- 

 dencies and results. Or, if we like to put it 

 in another form, every act must be accord- 



ing to the harmony of Nature or at variance 

 with that harmony, and therefore an elet 

 ment of discord and disturbance. In all 

 these senses, therefore, we speak, and we 

 are right in speaking, of actions as in them- 

 selves good or bad, because we so speak of 

 them according to our own knowledge of the 

 relation in which they stand to those great 

 axioms of morality, which are facts and not 

 mere assumptions or even mere beliefs. But 

 we are quite able to separate this judgment 

 of the act from the judgment which can 

 justly be applied to the individual agent. 

 As regards him, the act is right or wrong, 

 not according to our knowledge, but accord- 

 ing to his own. And this great distinction is 

 universally recognized in the language and 

 (however unconsciously) in the thoughts of 

 men. It is sanctioned, moreover, by supreme 

 authority. The most solemn prayer ever ut- 

 tered upon earth was a prayer for the for- 

 giveness of an act of the most enormous 

 wickedness, and the ground of the petition 

 was specially declared to be that those who 

 committed it " knew not what they did." 

 ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 9, p. 198. 

 (Bart.) 



31. ACTIVITIES OF THE EARTH 



Like the Respiration and Movements of an 

 Animal Discovery of Causes a Part of 

 Science. The internal heat of the earth, 

 the elevation and depression of its crust, its 

 belchings forth of vapors, ashes, and lava, 

 are its activities, in as strict a sense, as are 

 warmth and the movements and products of 

 respiration the activities of an animal. The 

 phenomena of the seasons, of the trade- 

 winds, of the Gulf-stream, are as much the 

 results of the reaction between these inner 

 activities and outward forces, as are the 

 building of the leaves in spring and their 

 falling in autumn the effects of the inter- 

 action between the organization of a plant 

 and the solar light and heat. And, as the 

 study of the activities of the living being is 

 called its physiology, so are these phenomena 

 the subject-matter of an analogous telluric 

 physiology, to which we sometimes give the 

 name of meteorology, sometimes that of 

 physical geography, sometimes that of geol- 

 ogy. Again, the earth has a place in space 

 and in time, and relations to other bodies in 

 both these respects, which constitute its dis- 

 tribution. This subject is usually left to the 

 astronomer; but a knowledge of its broad 

 outlines seems to me to be an essential con- 

 stituent of the stock of geological ideas. All 

 that can be ascertained concerning the struc- 

 ture, succession of conditions, actions, and 

 position in space of the earth, is the matter 

 of fact of its natural history. But, as in 

 biology, there remains the matter of reason- 

 ing from these facts to their causes, which 

 is just as much science as the other, and in- 

 deed more. HUXLEY Lay Sermons, serm. 

 11, p. 238. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



32. ACTIVITIES UNDIFFERENTIA- 

 TED IN ELEMENTARY ORGANISMS The 



