Christianity 

 Civilization 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



100 



We follow with pleasure the delineation of 

 his twilight rambles on the shore near 

 Ostia, which he describes as more pictur- 

 esque and more conducive to health than we 

 find it in the present day. In the religious 

 discourse entitled " Octavius " we meet with 

 a spirited defense of the new faith against 

 the attacks of a heathen friend. HUMBOLDT 

 Cosmos, vol. ii, pt. i, p. 38. (H., 1897.) 



495. CHRISTIANITY UNSHAKEN BY 

 COPERNICAN ASTRONOMY Religion Has 

 Outgrown the Ancient Cosmic Theories. It 

 is instructive to observe that, while the Co- 

 pernican astronomy has become firmly estab- 

 lished in spite of priestly opposition, the 

 foundations of Christian theology have not 

 been shaken thereby. It is not that the 

 question which once so sorely puzzled men 

 has ever been settled, but that it has been 

 outgrown. The speculative necessity for 

 man's occupying the largest and most cen- 

 tral spot in the universe is no longer felt. 

 It is recognized as a primitive and childish 

 notion. With our larger knowledge we see 

 that these vast and fiery suns are after all 

 but the Titan-like servants of the little 

 planets which they bear with them in their 

 flight through the abysses of space. . . . 

 And as when God revealed himself to his 

 ancient prophet he came; not in the earth- 

 quake or the tempest, but in a voice that 

 was still and small, so that divine spark the 

 soul, as it takes up its brief abode in this 

 realm of fleeting phenomena, chooses not the 

 central sun where elemental forces forever 

 blaze and clash, but selects an outlying ter- 

 restrial nook where seeds may germinate in 

 silence, and where through slow fruition the 

 mysterious forms of organic life may come 

 to take shape and thrive. FISKE Destiny of 

 Man, ch. 1, p. 16. (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



496. CHROMOSPHERE OF THE SUN 



Eclipses of 18^2 and 1851 The Solar 

 " Prominences." In July, 1842, a great 

 eclipse occurred, and the shadow of the 

 moon described a wide belt running across 

 southern France, northern Italy, and a por- 

 tion of Austria. The eclipse was carefully 

 observed by many of the most noted astron- 

 omers of the world; and so completely had 

 previous observations of the kind been for- 

 gofcten, that the prominences, which ap- 

 peared then with great brilliance, were re- 

 garded with extreme surprise, and became 

 objects of warm discussion, not only as to 

 their cause and location, but even as to their 

 very existence. Some thought them moun- 

 tains upon the sun, some that they were 

 solar flames, and others, clouds floating in 

 the sun's atmosphere. Others referred them 

 to the moon, and yet others claimed that 

 they were mere optical illusions. At the 

 eclipse of 1851 (in Sweden and Norway), 

 similar observations were repeated, and, as 

 a result of the discussions and comparison 

 of observations which followed, astronomers 

 generally became satisfied that the promi- 

 nences are real phenomena of the solar at- 



mosphere, in many respects analogous to 

 our terrestrial clouds; and several came 

 more or less confidently to the conclusion, 

 now known to be true, that the sun is en- 

 tirely surrounded with a continuous stratum 

 of the same substance. YOUNG The Sun, ch. 

 6, p. 195. (A., 1898.) 



497. CIRCULATION ON THE SUN 

 Products Cooled on the Surface Poured 

 Back for Reheating Otherwise All on 

 Earth Would Die Spots That Seem to Dim 

 the Glory Are the Very Source of Life. "Are 

 the spots, these gigantic areas of disturb- 

 ance, comparable to whirlpools or to vol- 

 canoes ? " It may seen unphilosophical to as- 

 sume that they are one or the other, and in 

 fact they may possibly be neither ; but it is 

 certain that the surface of the sun would 

 soon cool from its enormous temperature, if 

 it were not supplied with fresh heat, and it 

 is almost certain that this heat is drawn 

 from the interior. As M. Faye has pointed 

 out, there must be a circulation up and 

 down, the cooled products being carried 

 within, heated and brought out again, or 

 the sun would, however hot, grow cold out- 

 side; and, what is of interest to us, the 

 earth would grow cold also, and we should 

 all die. No one, I believe, who has studied 

 the subject, will contradict the statement 

 that if the sun's surface were absolutely cut 

 off from any heat-supply from the interior, 

 organic life in general upon the earth (and 

 our own life in particular) would cease 

 much within a month. This solar circula- 

 tion, then, is of nearly as much consequence 

 to us as that of our own bodies, if we but 

 knew it. LANGLEY New Astronomy, ch. 1, 

 p. 28. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



498. CIVILIZATION A GAIN The Poor, 

 as a Rule, Better Fed than Savages. To 

 uncivilized men supplies of food come very 

 irregularly. Long periods of scarcity are 

 divided by short periods of abundance. And 

 tho by gorging when opportunity occurs, 

 something is done towards compensating for 

 previous fasting, yet the effects of pro- 

 longed starvation cannot be neutralized by 

 occasional enormous meals. Bearing in 

 mind, too, that, improvident as they are, 

 savages often bestir themselves only under 

 pressure of hunger, we may fairly consider 

 them as habitually ill-nourished may see 

 that even the poorer classes of civilized men, 

 making regular meals on food separated 

 from innutritive matters, easy to masticate 

 and digest, tolerably good in quality, and 

 adequate if not abundant in quantity, are 

 much better nourished. SPENCER Biology, 

 pt. vi, ch. 12, p. 515. (A., 1900.) 



499. CIVILIZATION, ANCIENT En- 

 cumbered by Relics of Barbarism Evidences 

 of Slow Advance Hieroglyphics Dog and 

 Cat Worship. These, then [the Egyptians 

 and Babylonians], are the two nations whose 

 culture is earliest vouched for by inscriptions 

 done at the very time of their ancient gran- 



