143 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Criticism 

 Crystals 



705. CRUELTY WELLS UP FROM 

 THE LOWER NATURE A Survival of Bar- 

 barism Easily Developed by Encourage- 

 ment. As Rochefoucauld says, there is 

 something in the misfortunes of our very 

 friends that does not altogether displease 

 us; and an apostle of peace will feel a cer- 

 tain vicious thrill run through him, and en- 

 joy a vicarious brutality, as he turns to the 

 column in his newspaper at the top of which 

 " Shocking Atrocity " stands printed in 

 large capitals. See the ignoble crew that 

 escorts every great pugilist parasites who 

 feel as if the glory of his brutality rubbed 

 off upon them, and whose darling hope, from 

 day to day, is to arrange some set-to of 

 which they may share the rapture without 

 enduring the pains! The first blows at a 

 prize-fight are apt to make a refined spec- 

 tator sick ; but his blood is soon up in favor 

 of one party, and it will then seem as if the 

 other fellow could not be banged and 

 pounded and mangled enough the refined 

 spectator would like to reenforce the blows 

 himself. Over the sinister orgies of blood 

 of certain depraved and insane persons let a 

 curtain be drawn, as well as over the feroc- 

 ity with which otherwise fairly decent men 

 may be animated, when (at the sacking of 

 a town, for instance), the excitement of vic- 

 tory long delayed, the sudden freedom of 

 rapine and of lust, the contagion of a crowd, 

 and the impulse to imitate and outdo, all 

 combine to swell the blind drunkenness of 

 the killing instinct, and carry it to its ex- 

 treme. No! those who try to account for 

 this from above downwards, as if it resulted 

 from the consequences of the victory being 

 rapidly inferred, and from the agreeable sen- 

 timents associated with them in the imagi- 

 nation, have missed the root of the matter. 

 Our ferocity is blind, and can only be ex- 

 plained from below. Could we trace it back 

 through our line of descent, we should see 

 it taking more and more the form of a fatal 

 reflex response, and at the same time becom- 

 ing more and more the pure and direct emo- 

 tion that it is. JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, 

 ch. 24, p. 413. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



706. CRY OF FOSTER-PARENT NOT 

 UNDERSTOOD Bird Learns Only from Its 

 Own Kind. I am very familiar with the 

 manners of the parasitical starling or cow- 

 bird of South America. The warning cries 

 of the foster-parent have no effect on the 

 young cowbird at any time. Until they are 

 able to fly they will readily devour worms 

 from the hand of a man, even when the old 

 birds are hovering close by and screaming 

 their danger notes, and while their own 

 young, if the parasite has allowed any to 

 survive in the nest, are crouching down in 

 the greatest fear. After the cowbird has 

 left the nest it is still stupidly tame, and 

 more than once I have seen one carried off 

 from its elevated perch by a milvago hawk, 

 when, if it had understood the warning cry 

 of the foster-parent, it would have dropped 



down into the bush or grass and escaped. 

 But as soon as the young cowbirds are able 

 to shift for themselves, and begin to asso- 

 ciate with their own kind, their habits 

 change, and they become suspicious and wild 

 like other birds. HUDSON Naturalist in La 

 Plata, ch. 5, p. 90. (C. & H., 1895.) 



7O7. CRYSTALLIZATION REQUIRES 



TIME Enforced Suddenness Produces Imper- 

 fection Illustrates Revolutionary Action in 

 Society. The condition of perfect crystalli- 

 zation is, that the crystallizing force shall 

 act with deliberation. There should be no 

 hurry in its operations ; but every molecule 

 ought to be permitted, without disturbance 

 from its neighbors, to exercise its own 

 rights. If the crystallization be too sud- 

 den, the regularity disappears. Water may 

 be saturated with sulfate of soda, dis- 

 solved when the water is hot, and afterwards 

 permitted to cool. When cold the solution 

 is supersaturated ; that is to say, more solid 

 matter is contained in it than corresponds 

 to its temperature. Still the molecules show 

 no sign of building themselves together. 

 This is a very remarkable tho a very com- 

 mon fact. The molecules in the center of 

 the liquid are so hampered by the action of 

 their neighbors that freedom to follow their 

 own tendencies is denied to them. Fix v your 

 mind's eye upon a molecule within the mass. 

 It wishes to unite with its neighbor to the 

 right, but it wishes equally to unite with its 

 neighbor to the left; the one tendency neu- 

 tralizes the other, and it unites with neither. 

 But, if a crystal of sulfate of soda be 

 dropped into the solution, the molecular in- 

 decision ceases. On the crystal the adjacent 

 molecules will immediately precipitate 

 themselves; on these again others will be 

 precipitated, and this act of precipitation 

 will continue from the top of the flask to 

 the bottom, until the solution has, as far as 

 possible, assumed the solid form. The crys- 

 tals here produced are small, and confusedly 

 arranged. The process has been too hasty 

 to admit of the pure and orderly action of 

 the crystallizing force. It typifies the state 

 of a nation in which natural and healthy 

 change is resisted, until society becomes, as 

 it were, supersaturated with the desire for 

 change, the change being then effected 

 through confusion and revolution. TYN- 

 DALL Lectures on Light, lect. 3, p. 102. (A., 

 1898.) 



7O8. CRYSTALS, ARTIFICIAL 



Gives Scope to Innate Law of Matter Each 

 Substance Has Its Own Crystalline Form. 

 Everywhere in Nature we observe this tend- 

 ency to run into definite forms, and nothing 

 is easier than to give scope to this tend- 

 ency by artificial arrangements. Dissolve 

 niter in water, and allow the water slowly 

 to evaporate; the niter remains, and the 

 solution soon becomes so concentrated that 

 the liquid condition can no longer be pre- 

 served. The niter-molecules approach each 

 other, and come at length within the range 



