Carelessness 

 Cause 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



422. CARELESSNESS, CAUSE OF 

 DEATH Fatal Result of Neglect Uncleanli- 

 ness Destroys Infant Life. Careless feed- 

 ing, in conjunction with a warm, dry sum- 

 mer, invariably results in a high death-rate 

 from this cause. These two causes interact 

 upon each other. A warm temperature is a 

 favorable temperature for the growth of the 

 poisonous micro-organism; a dry season af- 

 fords ample opportunity for its conveyance 

 through the air. Unclean feeding-bottles 

 are obviously an admirable nidus for these 

 injurious bacteria, for in such a resting- 

 place the three main conditions necessary 

 for bacterial life are well fulfilled, viz.: 

 heat, moisture, and pabulum. The heat is 

 supplied by the warm temperature, the 

 moisture and food by the dregs of milk left 

 in the bottle, and the dry air assists in 

 transit. NEWMAN Bacteria, ch. 6, p. 204. 

 (G. P. P., 1899.) 



423. CARE OF OFFSPRING AMONG 

 BIRDS Intelligence Combined with Devotion. 

 The care of the young and their mental 

 and physical development afford us unequal 

 opportunities for the study of bird-charac- 

 ter. We may now become acquainted not 

 only with the species, but with individual 

 birds, and at a time when the greatest de- 

 mands are made upon their intelligence. 

 We may see the seed-eaters gathering in- 

 sects and perhaps beating them into a pulp 

 before giving them to their nestlings; or 

 we may learn how the doves, high-holes, and 

 humming-birds pump softened food from 

 their crops down the throats of their off- 

 spring. The activity of the parents at this 

 season is amazing. Think of the day's work 

 before a pair of chickadees with a family of 

 six or eight fledglings clamoring for food 

 from daylight to dark! CHAPMAN Bird- 

 Life, ch. 6, p. 70. (A., 1900.) 



424. CARE OF OFFSPRING INCREAS- 

 ES AS NUMBER DIMINISHES Maternal 

 Instinct among Birds Division of Labor 

 among Them Man's Single and Costly In- 

 fancy. With birds, the necessity of main- 

 taining a high temperature for the eggs 

 leads to the building of nests, to a division 

 of labor in the securing of food, to the de- 

 velopment of a temporary maternal in- 

 stinct, and to conjugal alliances which in 

 some birds last for a lifetime. As the eggs 

 become effectively guarded the number di- 

 minishes, till instead of millions there are 

 half a dozen. When it comes to her more 

 valuable products Nature is not such a reck- 

 less squanderer after all. So with mam- 

 mals, for the most part the young are in 

 litters of half a dozen or so; but in man, 

 with his prolonged and costly infancy, pa- 

 rental care reaches its highest development 

 and concentration in rearing children one 

 by one. FISKE Through Nature to God, pt. 

 ii, ch. 11, p. 118. (H. L. & Co., 1900.) 



425. CASTS OF VANISHED REMAINS 



Mold of Skeleton Preserved in Rock. I 

 have had occasion to work out the nature 



of fossil remains of which there was noth- 

 ing left except casts of the bones, the solid 

 material of the skeleton having been dis- 

 solved out by percolating water. It was a 

 chance, in this case, that the sandstone hap- 

 pened to be of such a constitution as to set, 

 and to allow the bones to be afterward dis- 

 solved out, leaving cavities of the exact 

 shape of the bones. Had that constitution 

 been other than what it was, the bones 

 would have been dissolved, the layers of 

 sandstone would have fallen together into 

 one mass, and not the slightest indication 

 'that the animal had existed would have 

 been discoverable. HUXLEY American Ad- 

 dresses, lect. 2, p. 45. (A., 1898.) 



426. CAUSALITY, THE IDEA OF, IN- 

 HERENT IN NAN Science Springs from the 

 Search for Causes. All our notions of Na- 

 ture, however exalted or however grotesque, 

 have some foundation in experience. The 

 notion of personal volition in Nature had 

 this basis. In the fury and the serenity of 

 natural phenomena the savage saw the 

 transcript of his own varying moods, and 

 he accordingly ascribed these phenomena to 

 beings of like passions with himself, but 

 vastly transcending him in power. Thus 

 the notion of causality the assumption 

 that natural things did not come of them- 

 selves, but had unseen antecedents lay at 

 the root of even the savage's interpretation 

 of Nature. Out of this bias of the human 

 mind to seek for the antecedents of phe- 

 nomena all science has sprung. TYNDALL 

 Lectures on Light, lect. 1, p. 4. (A., 1898.) 



427. CAUSATION, PERSONAL, AN 

 ULTIMATE FACT OF CONSCIOUSNESS 



Force, as Known to Man, Connected with 

 Conscious Mind. There is a philosophy 

 which has fully as true and as broad a basis 

 in man's psychical experience as can be 

 claimed for the fabric of physical science; 

 and in the admirable words of the great 

 master I have already quoted (Sir John 

 Herschel, in his " Familiar Lectures on Sci- 

 entific Subjects," p. 460), I shall sum up an 

 argument which this paper is intended 

 rather to illustrate and enforce by an ap- 

 peal to the familiar facts of consciousness 

 than to present in strict logical form : 



" In the mental sense of effort, clear to 

 the apprehension of every one who has ever 

 performed a voluntary act, which is present 

 at the instant when the determination to do 

 a thing is carried out into the act of doing 

 it, we have a consciousness of immediate 

 and personal causation which cannot be dis- 

 puted or ignored. And when we see the 

 same kind of act performed by another, we 

 never hesitate in assuming for him that 

 consciousness which we recognize in our- 

 selves; and in this case we can verify our 

 conclusion by oral communication." " In the 

 only case in which we are admitted into any 

 personal knowledge of the origin of force, 

 we find it connected (possibly by intermedi- 

 ate links untraceable by our faculties, yet 



