115 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Compensation 

 Concentration 







snme amplitude as the first one, the ellipse 

 becomes a circle. TYNDALL Lectures on 

 Light, lect. 4, p. 142. (A., 1898.) 



570. COMPREHENSIVENESS OF 



GENIUS Newton Proved Gravitation by 

 Siudying the Disturbances of the Moon's 

 Motion. It was in dealing with these dis- 

 turbances [of the moon] that Newton showed 

 with what wonderful mental powers he had 

 been endowed. He tracked the moon through 

 all her movements, and measured the sun's 

 action on her in all positions; he showed 

 where she would be hastened, where re- 

 tarded, where drawn away from the earth, 

 where drawn closer, where her path 

 would be more tilted, where less, where its 

 eccentricity would be increased, where di- 

 minished. All the peculiarities of motion 

 thus calculated from the law of gravitation 

 were found to accord in the most convincing 

 manner with those peculiarities actually ob- 

 served in the moon's motions which had long 

 perplexed astronomers. The demonstration 

 of the law of gravitation was so complete, as 

 it thus first came from Newton's hands, that 

 within a very short time men of science were 

 thoroughly convinced, and the law of gravi- 

 tation has not been seriously questioned 

 from that day to this. PROCTOR Expanse of 

 eaven, p. 113. (L. G. & Co.) 



571. COMPREHENSIVENESS F 

 THE HUMAN MIND Man Reads System 

 into Phenomena. Through this faculty of 

 invention the whole earth is man's. There 

 is not a lone island fit for his abode whereon 

 some Alexander Selkirk has not made a 

 home. Every mineral, plant, and animal is 

 so far known that a place has been found 

 for it in his Systema Naturce. Every crea- 

 ture is subject to man; the winds, the seas, 

 the sunshine, the lightning do his bidding. 

 Projecting his vision beyond his tiny planet, 

 this inventing animal has catalogued and 

 traced the motion of every star. But his 

 crowning glory (which always fills me with 

 admiration) is his ever-increasing compre- 

 hensiveness. After centuries of cultivating 

 acquaintance with the discrete phenomena 

 around him, he has now striven to coordi- 

 nate them, to make them organic, to read 

 system into them. He has learned by de- 

 grees to comprehend all things as parts of a 

 single mechanism. Sir Isaac Newton and 

 Kepler conceived all objects and all worlds 

 to be held by universal gravitation. MASON 

 The Birth of Invention. Address at Cen- 

 tenary of Am. Pat. System, Washington, D. 

 C., 1891 ; proceedings, p. 403. 



572. COMPULSION ABOLISHES 

 MORAL QUALITY OF ACTIONS If any 



human action is determined not by any mo- 

 tive whatever, but simply by external or 

 physical compulsion, then no moral element 

 is present at all, and no perception of the 

 moral sense can arise respecting it. Free- 

 dom, therefore, in the sense of exemption 

 from such compulsion, must be assumed as 



a condition of human action absolutely es- 

 sential to its possessing any moral character 

 whatever. ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 9, 

 p. 197. (Burt.) 



573. COMPULSION OF BODY BY 



MIND The "Mountain Sickness" Milk Re- 

 freshes Alpine Climber. It is not good to 

 go altogether without food in these climbing 

 expeditions ; nor is it good to eat copiously. 

 Here a little and there a little, as the need 

 makes itself apparent, is the prudent course. 

 For, left to itself, the stomach infallibly 

 sickens, and the forces of the system ooze 

 away. Should the sickness have set in so as 

 to produce a recoil from nutriment, the 

 stomach must be forced to yield. A small 

 modicum of food usually suffices to set it 

 right. The strongest guides and the sturdi- 

 est porters have sometimes to use this com- 

 pulsion. . . . On the present occasion I 

 had a bottle of milk, which suits me better 

 than anything else. That and a crust are 

 all I need to keep my vigor up and to ward 

 off le mal des montagnes. TYNDALL Hours 

 of Exercise in the Alps, ch. 25, p. 302. (A., 

 1898.) 



574. CONCENTRATION OF INDUS- 

 TRY The Factory System Antedates Steam 

 Apprenticeship an Incident. And just as 

 Hargreaves and Arkwright and Crompton 

 were inventing the new machines which were 

 to be moved, Watt was laboring at the new 

 power which was to move them. But mean- 

 while, before the steam-engine had been 

 made available, the factory system had be- 

 gun under the old motive power of water; 

 and here it is very curious to observe how 

 each stage in the progress of discovery had, 

 by way of natural consequence, its own 

 special effect on the conduct and the wills of 

 men. Very soon the course of every moun- 

 tain stream in Lancashire and Yorkshire 

 was marked by factories. This again had 

 another consequence. It was a necessity of 

 the case that such factories must generally 

 be situated at a distance from preexisting 

 populations, and, therefore, from a full sup- 

 ply of labor. Consequently they had to 

 create communities for themselves. From 

 this necessity, again, it arose that the 

 earlier mills were worked under a system of 

 apprenticeship. The due attendance of the 

 requisite number of " hands " was secured 

 by engagements which bound the laborer to 

 his work for a definite period. ARGYLL 

 Reign of Law, ch. 7, p. 207. (Burt.) 



575. CONCENTRATION OF POWER 



Through a Three-foot Burning-glass the 

 Sun's Heat Vaporizes Diamond A Partial 

 Revelation of the Heat of the Sun's Surface 

 Source of Heat Exceeds Its Reflection or 

 Refraction. One certain thing is this that 

 we cannot by any contrivance raise the tem- 

 perature in the focus of any lens or mirror 

 beyond that of its source (practically we 

 cannot do even so much) ; we cannot, for 

 instance, by any burning-lens make the 



