SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Accumulation 

 Action 



knowledge and a little strength, and then 

 turning the knowledge and the strength so 

 won back upon Nature, with the view T of 

 winning more. Action and reaction have 

 thus gone on from prehistoric ages to the 

 present time. The result is that stored 

 body of scientific knowledge, and that de- 

 veloped power of scientific investigation, 

 which have revolutionized philosophy, and 

 begotten those marvels of practical science 

 in the midst of which we dwell. TYNDALL 

 Heat a Mode of Motion, lect. 1, p. 1. (A., 

 1900.) 



22. ACTION A NECESSITY TO 

 CLENCH GOOD RESOLUTION Seize the 

 very first possible opportunity to act on 

 every resolution you make, and on every emo- 

 tional prompting you may experience in the 

 direction of the habits you aspire to gain. 

 It is not in the moment of their forming, 

 but in the moment of their producing motor 

 effects, that resolves and aspirations com- 

 municate the new " set " to the brain. No 

 matter how full a reservoir of maxims one 

 may possess, and no matter how good one's 

 sentiments may be, if one have not taken 

 advantage of every concrete opportunity to 

 act, one's character may remain entirely 

 unaffected for the better. JAMES Talks to 

 Teachers, ch. 8, p. 69. (H. H. & Co., 1900.) 



23. ACTION, CONTINUOUS, OF 



EARTH-BUILDING FORCES Slow Upheaval 

 and Subsidence of Lands Now Taking Place. 

 Recent observations have disclosed to us 

 the wonderful fact that not only the west 

 coast of South America, but also other 

 large areas, some of them several thousand 

 miles in circumference, such as Scandinavia, 

 and certain archipelagoes in the Pacific, are 

 slowly and insensibly rising; while other 

 regions, such as Greenland, and parts of the 

 Pacific and Indian Oceans, in which atolls 

 or circular coral islands abound, are as 

 gradually sinking. That all the existing 

 continents and submarine abysses may 

 have originated in movements of this kind, 

 continued throughout incalculable periods 

 of time, is undeniable, and the denudation 

 which the dry land appears everywhere to 

 have suffered favors the idea that it was 

 raised from the deep by a succession of up- 

 ward movements, prolonged throughout in- 

 definite periods. For the action of waves 

 and currents on land slowly emerging from 

 the deep affords the only power by which 

 we can conceive so many deep valleys and 

 wide spaces to have been denuded as those 

 which are unquestionably the effects of 

 running water. LYELL Principles of Geol- 

 ogy, ch. 11, p. 170. (A., 1854.) 



24. ACTION IMPRESSES MEMORY 



Effort Better than Prompting. A curious 

 peculiarity of our memory is that things 

 are impressed better by active than by 

 passive repetition. I mean that in learn- 

 ing by heart (for example) , when we almost 

 know the piece, it pays better to wait and 

 recollect by an effort from within than to 



look at the book again. If we recover the 

 words in the former way, we shall probably 

 know them the next time; if in the latter 

 way, we shall very likely need the book 

 once more. JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 

 16, p. 686. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



25. ACTION, INCALCULABLE, OF 



ELEMENTAL FORCES Freaks of Light- 

 ning. The house [struck by lightning at 

 Montevideo] I saw shortly afterwards. 

 . . . Some of the effects were curious. 

 The paper, for nearly a foot on each side of 

 the line where the bell-wires had run, was 

 blackened. The rnetal had been fused, and 

 altho the room was about fifteen feet high, 

 the globules, dropping on the chairs and fur- 

 niture, had drilled in them a chain of mi- 

 nute holes. A part of the wall was shat- 

 tered as if by gunpowder, and the fragments 

 had been blown off with force sufficient to 

 dent the w r all on the opposite side of the 

 room. The frame of a looking-glass was 

 blackened, and the gilding must have been 

 volatilized, for a smelling-bottle, which stood 

 on the chimney-piece, was coated with bright 

 metallic particles, which adhered as firmly 

 as if they had been enameled. DARWIN Nat- 

 uralist's Voyage Around the World, ch. 3. p. 

 62. (A., 1898.) 



26. ACTION MAY BE REFLEX, NOT 

 INDICATING MIND If a man has his 

 back broken in such a way as to sever the 

 connection between his brain and lower ex- 

 tremities, on pinching or tickling his feet 

 they are drawn suddenly away from the 

 irritation, altho the man is quite unconscious 

 of the adaptive movement of his muscles; 

 the lower nerve-centers of the spinal cord 

 are competent to bring about this movement 

 of adaptive response without requiring to be 

 directed by the brain. This non-mental op- 

 eration of the lower nerve-centers in the pro- 

 duction of apparently intentional movements 

 is called reflex action, and the cases of its 

 occurrence, even within the limits of our own 

 organism, are literally numberless. There- 

 fore, in view of such non-mental nervous 

 adjustment, leading to movements which are 

 only in appearance intentional, it clearly be- 

 comes a matter of great difficulty to say in 

 the case of the lower animals whether any 

 action which appears to indicate intelligent 

 choice is not really action of the reflex kind. 

 ROMANES Animal Intelligence, int., p. 3. 

 (A., 1899.) 



27. ACTION OF ANIMALS Determined 

 by Memory. The action of animals may be 

 determined by memorial ideas, as well as 

 by the corresponding sense-impressions. I 

 often made the following amusing experi- 

 ment with my own poodle. I had taught 

 him to spring over a stick which I held out 

 at the word "Jump!" One day I called 

 the word out to him without presenting the 

 stick. At first he looked at me in surprise, 

 and then, as I repeated the command, 

 barked impatiently. At last, after I had 



