71 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



ing 



may they not of two? We also know that 

 several of the same species of creatures in- 

 habit the Arctic that we have fished up 

 from great depths in the Antarctic seas. The 

 only way they could get from one pole to 

 the" other must have been through the 

 tropics; but the temperature of the sea in 

 those regions is such that they could not 

 exist in it, unless at a depth of nearly 2,000 

 fathoms. At that depth they might pass 

 from the Arctic to the Antarctic Ocean with- 

 out a variation of five degrees of tempera- 

 ture; whilst any land animal, at the most 

 favorable season, must experience a differ- 

 ence of fifty degrees, and, if in the winter, 

 no less than 150 degrees of Fahrenheit's 

 thermometer a sufficient reason why there 

 are neither quadrupeds, nor birds, nor land 

 insects common to both regions." HICKSON 

 Fauna of the Deep Sea, ch. 1, p. 3. (A., 

 1894.) 



353. BELIEF IN A FUTURE LIFE 



Ancient British Islanders. The care with 

 which the dead were interred, and the cus- 

 tom [prevalent, but not universal] of bury- 

 ing implements with them, may fairly be 

 regarded as indicating the existence of a be- 

 lief in the immortality of the soul, and in a 

 material existence after death. 



The objects buried with the dead are 

 sometimes numerous, and always interest- 

 ing. In a large tumulus near Everley, a 

 deposit of burnt bones was " surrounded by 

 a circular wreath of horns of the red- 

 deer " ; whilst at a higher level, tho three 

 feet from the summit, was the skeleton of a 

 small dog, the " attendant in the chase, and 

 perhaps the victim in death," of the hunter, 

 whose exquisitely chipped arrow-heads, five 

 in number, were deposited with his ashes. 

 AVEBURY Prehistoric Times, ch. 5, p. 133. 

 (A., 1900.) 



354. Favorite Objects 



Buried with the Dead American Indians. 

 The remark made by Schoolcraft as re- 

 gards the American Indians is applicable to 

 many savage tribes. " Nothing that the 

 dead possessed was deemed too valuable to 

 be interred with the body. The most costly 

 dress, arms, ornaments, and implements, 

 are deposited in the grave," which is 

 " placed in the choicest scenic situations 

 on some crowning hill or gentle eminence in 

 a secluded valley." And the North-Ameri- 

 can Indians are said, even until within the 

 last few years, to have long cherished a 

 friendly feeling for the French, because, in 

 the time of their supremacy, they had at 

 least this one great merit, that they never 

 disturbed the resting-places of the dead. 

 AVEBURY Prehistoric Times, ch. 5, p. 123. 

 (A., 1900.) 



355. BELIEF IN ILLUSIONS OF OTH- 

 ERS Every Man Attributes the Failing to 

 All the Rest. Most men are sometimes 

 liable to illusion. Hardly anybody is al- 

 ways consistently sober and rational in his 



perceptions and beliefs. A momentary fa- 

 tigue of the nerves, a little mental excite- 

 ment, a relaxation of the effort of attention 

 by which we continually take our bearings 

 with respect to the real world about us, will 

 produce just the same kind of confusion of 

 reality and phantasm which we observe in 

 the insane. To give but an example: the 

 play of fancy which leads to a detection of 

 animal and other forms in clouds is known 

 to be an occupation of the insane, and is 

 rightly made use of by Shakespeare as a 

 mark of incipient mental aberration in 

 Hamlet; and yet this very same occupation 

 is quite natural to children, and to imagi- 

 native adults when they choose to throw the 

 reins on the neck of their fantasy. Our 

 luminous circle of rational perception is 

 surrounded by a misty penumbra of illu- 

 sion. Common sense itself may be said to 

 admit this, since the greatest stickler for 

 the enlightenment of our age will be found 

 in practise to accuse most of his acquaint- 

 ance at some time or another of falling into 

 illusion. SULLY Illusions, ch. 1, p. 3. (A., 

 1897.) 



356. BELIEF IN THE UNKNOWABLE 

 A NECESSITY Human Personality Inex- 

 plicable Agnosticism Accepts the Mystery. 

 Let us ask him [the agnostic] if he can 

 subscribe to the simple creed expressed in 

 the words " I am, I feel, I think." Should 

 he deny these propositions, then there is no 

 basis left on which to argue. Should he ad- 

 mit this much of belief, he has abandoned 

 somewhat of his agnostic position; for it 

 would be easy to show that in even uttering 

 the pronoun " I " he has committed himself 

 to the belief in the unknowable. What is 

 the ego which lie admits? Is it the ma- 

 terial organism or any one of its organs or 

 parts? or is it something distinct, of which 

 the organism is merely the garment, or out- 

 ward manifestation? or is the organism it- 

 self anything more than a bundle of ap- 

 pearances partially known and scarcely un- 

 derstood by that which calls itself " I " ? 

 Who knows ? And if our own personality is 

 thus inscrutable, if we can conceive of it 

 neither as identical with the whole or any 

 part of the organism, nor as existing inde- 

 pendently of the organism, we should begin 

 our agnosticism here, and decline to utter 

 the pronoun " I " as implying what we can- 

 not know. DAWSON Facts and Fancies in 

 Modern Science, lect. 1, p. 22. (A. B. P. S.) 



357. BELIEF NOT FORCED BY WILL 



Created by Action According to Facts: 

 " If Any Man Will Do His Will " (John vii, 

 17). If belief consists in an emotional re- 

 action of the entire man on an object, how 

 can we believe at will? We cannot control 

 our emotions. Truly enough, a man cannot 

 believe at will abruptly. Nature some- 

 times, and indeed not very infrequently, 

 produces instantaneous conversions for us. 

 She suddenly puts us in an active connec- 



