103 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Civilization 

 Cleanlii 



work of civilization would be by no means 

 completed. In ministering to human happi- 

 ness in countless ways, through the pursuit 

 of purely spiritual ends, in enriching and 

 diversifying life to the utmost, there would 

 still be almost limitless work to be done. I 

 believe that such a time will come for weary 

 and suffering mankind. Such a faith is in- 

 spiring. It sustains one in the work of life, 

 when one would otherwise lose heart. But 

 it is a faith that rests upon induction. 

 The process of evolution is excessively slow, 

 and its ends are achieved at the cost of 

 enormous waste of life, but for innumerable 

 ages its direction has been toward the goal 

 here pointed out ; and the case may be fitly 

 summed up in the statement that whereas 

 in its rude beginnings the psychical life was 

 but an appendage to the body, in fully de- 

 veloped humanity the body is but the vehicle 

 for the soul. FISKE Destiny of Man, ch. 8, 

 p. 64. (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



510. CIVILIZATION REMOVES OCCA- 

 SIONS FOR FEAR The progress from 

 brute to man is characterized by nothing so 

 much as by the decrease in frequency of 

 proper occasions for fear. In civilized life, 

 in particular, it has at last become possible 

 for large numbers of people to pass from the 

 cradle to the grave without ever having had 

 a pang of genuine fear. Many of us need 

 an attack of mental disease to teach us the 

 meaning of the word. Hence the possibility 

 of so much blindly optimistic philosophy 

 and religion. The atrocities of life become 

 " like a tale of little meaning, tho the words 

 are strong"; we doubt if anything like us 

 ever really was within the tiger's jaws, and 

 conclude that the horrors we hear of are but 

 a sort of painted tapestry for the chambers 

 in which we lie so comfortably at peace 

 with ourselves and with the world. JAMES 

 Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 24, p. 415. (H. H. & 

 Co., 1899.) 



511. CIVILIZATION TEACHES REGU- 

 LAR WORK Savage Requires Excitement. 

 We naturally assume that because barba- 

 rians are averse to regular labor their mus- 

 cular action is less than our own. But this 

 is not necessarily true. The monotonous 

 toil is what they cannot tolerate; and they 

 may be ready to go through as much or 

 more exertion when it is joined with excite- 

 ment. If we remember that the sportsman 

 who gladly scrambles up and down rough 

 hillsides all day after grouse or deer, would 

 think himself hardly used had he to spend 

 as much effort and time in digging; we 

 shall see that a savage who is the reverse of 

 industrious, may nevertheless be subject to 

 a muscular waste not very different in 

 amount from that undergone by the indus- 

 trious. SPENCER Biology, pt. vi, ch. 12, p. 

 515. (A., 1900.) 



512. CIVILIZATION, THE DWELLING 

 AN INDEX OF In general, the dwelling 

 provides an instrument for measuring the 



degree of civilization a people has attained. 

 ALSBERG Die gesunde Wohnung. (Trans- 

 lated for Scientific Side-Lights.} 



513. CLASSIFICATION, BACTERIA 

 ELUDE Even yet, however, we are far 

 from a scientific classification for bacteria. 

 Nor is this matter for surprise. The de- 

 velopment in this branch of biology has been 

 so rapid that it has been impossible to as- 

 similate the facts collected. The facts them- 

 selves by their remarkable variety have not 

 aided classification. Names "which a few 

 years ago were applied to individual species 

 are now representative, not of individuals, 

 but of families and groups of species. Again, 

 isolated characteristics of certain microbes, 

 such as motility, power of liquefying gela- 

 tin, size, color, and so forth, which at first 

 sight might appear as likely to form a basis 

 for classification, are found to vary not only 

 between similar germs, but in the same 

 germ. Different physical conditions have so 

 powerful an influence upon these microscopic 

 cells that their individual characters are 

 constantly undergoing change. For example, 

 bacteria in old cultures assume a different 

 size, and often a different shape, from 

 younger members of precisely the same 

 species. . . . Hence it will at once ap- 

 pear to the student of bacteriology that, tho 

 there is great need for classification amongst 

 the six or seven hundred species of microbes, 

 our present knowledge of their life-history 

 is not yet advanced enough to form more 

 than a provisional arrangement. NEWMAN 

 Bacteria, ch. 1, p. 7. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



514. CLASSIFICATION DEPENDENT 

 UPON PURPOSE It is always easy to 

 find fault with a classification. There are a 

 hundred possible ways of arranging any set 

 of objects, and something may almost al- 

 ways be said against the best and in favor 

 of the worst of them. But the merits of a 

 classification depend on the purposes to 

 which it is instrumental. MILL Positive 

 Philosophy of Auguste Comte, p, 40. (H. 

 H. & Co., 1887.) 



515. CLEANLINESS SECURES PURI- 

 TY OF MILK Gross Pollution under Ordi- 

 nary Conditions. Professor Russell [in 

 "Dairy Bacteriology," p. 46] recounts a 

 simple experiment [as follows] : 



" A cow that had been pastured in a 

 meadow was taken for the experiment, and 

 the milking done out-of-doors, to eliminate 

 as much as possible the influence of germs 

 in the barn air. Without any special pre- 

 caution being taken the cow was partially 

 milked, and during the operation a covered 

 glass dish, containing a thin layer of sterile 

 gelatin, was exposed for sixty seconds un- 

 derneath the belly of the cow in close prox- 

 imity to the milk-pail. The udder, flank, 

 and legs of the cow were then thoroughly 

 cleaned with water, and all of the precau- 

 tions referred to before were carried out, 

 and the milking then resumed. A second 



