Concentration 

 Conflagration 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



image of a candle as hot as the original 

 flame. Whatever a thermometer may read 

 when the candle-heat is concentrated on its 

 bulb by a lens, it would read yet more if the 

 bulb were dipped in the candle-flame itself; 

 and one obvious application of this fact is 

 that tho we cannot dip our thermometer in 

 the sun, we know that if we could do so 

 the temperature would at least be greater 

 than any we get by the largest burning- 

 glass. We need have no fear of making the 

 burning-glass too big; the temperature at 

 its solar focus is always and necessarily 

 lower than that of the sun itself. 



For some reason no very great burning- 

 lens or mirror has been constructed for a 

 long time, and we have to go back to the 

 eighteenth century to see what can be done 

 in this way. . . . 



In England, the largest burning-lens on 

 record was made ... by an optician 

 named Parker for the English Government, 

 who designed it as a present to be taken by 

 Lord Macartney's embassy to the Emperor 

 of China. Parker's lens was three feet in 

 diameter and very massive, being seven 

 inches thick at the center. In its focus the 

 most refractory substances were fused, and 

 even the diamond was reduced to vapor, so 

 that the temperature of the sun's surface is 

 at any rate higher than this. LANGLEY New 

 Astronomy, ch. 4, p. 102. (H. M. & Co.) 



576. CONCEPTION, INFINITE, FROM 

 FINITE EXPERIENCE Indestructibility of 

 Matter and of Force. It is indeed of the 

 highest importance to observe that some of 

 these conceptions, especially the indestructi- 

 bility of matter and of force, belong to the 

 domain of science. . . . As now accepted 

 and defined, they are the result of direct ex- 

 periment. And yet, strictly speaking, all 

 that experiment can do is to prove that in 

 all the cases in which either matter or force 

 seems to be destroyed, no such destruction 

 has taken place. Here then we have a very 

 limited and imperfect amount of " experi- 

 ence " giving rise to an infinite conception. 

 But it is another of the suggestions of the 

 agnostic philosophy that this can never be a 

 legitimate result. Nevertheless, it is a fact 

 that these conceptions have been reached. 

 They are now universally accepted and 

 taught as truths lying at the foundation of 

 every branch of natural science at once the 

 beginning and the end of every physical in- 

 vestigation. ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 

 4, p. 85. (Burt.) 



577. CONCEPTION OF A FINITE 

 CREATOR God Himself Viewed as Engaged 

 in the Struggle against Inevitable Evil 

 Mill's Belief. Re [John Stuart Mill] does 

 not undertake to suggest how or why the 

 divine power is limited; but he distinctly 

 prefers the alternative which sacrifices the 

 attribute of omnipotence in order to pre- 

 serve in our conception of Deity the attri- 

 bute of goodness. According to Mr. Mill, 

 we may regard the all-wise and holy Deity 



as a creative energy that is perpetually at 

 work in eliminating evil from the universe. 

 His wisdom is perfect, his goodness is in- 

 finite, but his power is limited by some inex- 

 plicable viciousness in the original constitu- 

 tion of things which it must require a long 

 succession of ages to overcome. In such a 

 view Mr. Mill sees much that is ennobling. 

 The humblest human being who resists an 

 impulse to sin, or helps in the slightest de- 

 gree to leave the world better than he found 

 it, may actually be regarded as a partici- 

 pator in the creative work of God; and 

 thus each act of human life acquires a sol- 

 emn significance that is almost overwhelm- 

 ing to contemplate. FISKE Through Nature 

 to God, pt. i, ch. 3, p. 17. (H. M. & Co., 

 1900.) 



578. CONCEPTIONS FOUNDED ON 

 EXPERIENCE The "Falling Atoms" of 

 Ancient Philosophy. Our conceptions of 

 natural phenomena and their causes are 

 founded on, but they are not bounded by, 

 sensible experience. The eternally falling 

 atoms of Epicurus and Lucretius, for ex- 

 ample, were derived from the observation of 

 small particles of matter; but in trans- 

 forming such particles, by a mental act. 

 into atoms, the ancient philosophers broke 

 ground in an ideal region. The notion of 

 falling indicates the manner in which the 

 ancient mind was conditioned by experience ; 

 for in those days, while the action of gravity 

 was known, the action of molecular force, 

 capable of attracting and arranging the 

 atoms, was unknown. The case is represent- 

 ative, the visible world being converted by 

 science into the symbol of an invisible one. 

 We can have no explanation of the objects 

 of experience, without invoking the aid and 

 ministry of objects which lie beyond the pale 

 of experience. We can only reach the roots 

 of natural phenomena by laying down, in- 

 tellectually, a subsensible soil out of which 

 such phenomena spring. TYNDALL Heat a 

 Mode of Motion, lect. 1, p. 32. (A., 1900.) 



579. CONCURRENCE OF EVENTS 

 TO ADVANCE ASTRONOMY The "Set 

 Time " of a Great Movement Herschel 

 " Bursts the Barriers of Heaven." Much of 

 this interest was due to the occurrence of 

 events calculated to arrest the attention and 

 excite the wonder of the uninitiated. The 

 predicted return of Halley's comet in 1759 

 verified, after an unprecedented fashion, the 

 computations of astronomers. It deprived 

 such bodies forever of their portentous 

 character; it ranked them as denizens of 

 the solar system. Again, the transits of 

 Venus in 1761 and 1769 were the first oc- 

 currences of the kind since the awakening 

 of science to their consequence. Imposing 

 preparations, journeys to remote and hardly 

 accessible regions, official expeditions, inter- 

 national communications, all for the pur- 

 pose of observing them to the best advan- 

 tage, brought their high significance vividly 

 to the public consciousness; a result aided 





