59 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Attenuation 

 A utoniatism 





and not at all as a matter of question or 

 of doubt, our first conception of duty, or of 

 moral obligation, is necessarily and uni- 

 versally attached to such acts as are in 

 conformity with the injunctions of this 

 first and most indisputable of all authori- 

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

 210. (Burt.) 



292. AUTHORITY USED TO MAIN- 

 TAIN ERROR Dispute over Nature of Light 

 Conflict of Theories. After philosophers 

 had become aware of the manner in which 

 sound was produced and transmitted, anal- 

 ogy led some of them to suppose that light 

 might be produced and transmitted in a 

 somewhat similar manner. And perhaps, 

 in the whole history of science, there was 

 never a question more hotly contested than 

 this one. Sir Isaac Newton . . . sup- 

 posed light to consist of minute particles, 

 darted out from luminous bodies. Huygens, 

 the contemporary of Newton, found great 

 difficulty in admitting this cannonade of 

 particles; or in realizing that they could 

 shoot with inconceivable velocity through 

 space, and yet not disturb each other. This 

 celebrated man entertained the view that 

 light was produced by vibrations similar to 

 those of sound. Euler supported Huy- 

 gens. . . . 



The authority of Newton bore these men 

 down, and not until a man of genius within 

 these walls took up the subject had the 

 theory of undulation any chance of coping 

 with the rival theory of emission. To Dr. 

 Thomas Young, formerly Professor of Nat- 

 ural Philosophy in the Royal Institution, 

 belongs the honor of stemming this tide of 

 authority, and of establishing, on a safe 

 basis, the undulatory theory of light. Great 

 things have been done in this edifice; but 

 scarcely a greater thing than this. TYN- 

 DALL Heat a Mode of Motion, lect. 10, p. 274. 

 (A., 1900.) 



293. AUTOMATISM IMPLIES DESIGN 



Mind behind Machine. The automatic 

 theory would seem to be one which can least 

 of all dispense with design, since, either in 

 the literal or current sense of the word, un- 

 designed automatism is, as near as may be, 

 a contradiction in terms. As the automa- 

 ton man constructs manifests the designs 

 of its maker and mover, so the more effi- 

 cient automata which man did not con- 

 struct would not legitimately suggest less 

 than human intelligence. And so all adap- 

 tations in the animal and vegetable world 

 which irresistibly suggest purpose (in the 

 sense now accepted) would also suggest de- 

 sign, and, under the law of parsimony, 

 claim to be thus interpreted, unless some 

 other hypothesis will better account for the 

 facts. ASA GRAY Darwiniana, art. 13, p. 

 360. (A., 1889.) 



294. AUTOMATISM LABORIOUSLY 



ACQUIRED The Beginner on the Violin. 

 " When one begins to play on the violin, to 



keep him from raising his right elbow in 

 playing, a book is placed under his right 

 armpit, which he is ordered to hold fast by 

 keeping the upper arm tight against his 

 body. The muscular feelings, and feelings 

 of contact connected with the book, provoke 

 an impulse to press it tight. But often it 

 happens that the beginner, whose attention 

 gets absorbed in the production of the notes, 

 lets drop the book. Later, however, this 

 never happens; the faintest sensations of 

 contact suffice to awaken the impulse to 

 keep it in its place, and the attention may 

 be wholly absorbed by the notes and the fin- 

 gering with the left hand. The simultaneous 

 combination of movements is thus in the 

 first instance conditioned by the facility 

 with which in us, alongside of intellectual 

 processes, processes of inattentive feeling 

 may still go on." ( Schneider, " Der mensch- 

 liche Wille.") JAMES Psychology, vol. i, 

 ch. 4, p. 119. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



295. AUTOMATISM OF MUSICIAN 



Muscles Respond Unconsciously to Sight or 

 Sound. Thus a musical performer will 

 play a piece which has become familiar by 

 repetition, whilst carrying on an animated 

 conversation, or whilst continuously en- 

 grossed by some train of deeply interesting 

 thought; the accustomed sequence of move- 

 ments being directly prompted by the sight 

 of the notes, or by the remembered succes- 

 sion of the sounds (if the piece is played 

 from memory), aided in both cases by the 

 guiding sensations derived from the muscles 

 themselves. But further, a higher degree 

 of the same " training " ( acting on an or- 

 ganism specially fitted to profit by it) en- 

 ables an accomplished pianist to play a 

 difficult piece of music at sight; the move- 

 ments of the hands and fingers following so 

 immediately upon the sight of the notes 

 that it seems impossible to believe that any 

 but the very shortest and most direct track 

 can be the channel of the nervous communi- 

 cation through which they are called forth. 

 CARPENTER Mental Physiology, ch. 5, p. 

 217. (A., 1900.) 



296. AUTOMATISM, THEORY OF, 

 DESTROYS RESPONSIBILITY Drunkard 

 Held Blameless Conqueror of Temptation 

 Allowed No Merit. On the automatist 

 theory, a drunkard who deserts a comfort- 

 able home for the taproom (I make large 

 allowance for those who have uncomfort- 

 able homes ) , who neglects an attached wife 

 and loving children for the society of profli- 

 gates, and who, with ample means of higher 

 enjoyment, surrenders himself without a 

 struggle to the allurements of sensual pleas- 

 ure, and at last renders himself amenable 

 to the law by fatal outrage on the patient 

 wife who has long borne with his brutality, 

 is no more a subject of moral reprobation 

 than poor Hartley Coleridge, who, when he 

 strayed from the loving care of his friends, 

 would be found in the parlor of some rural 



