SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



154 



original cause, the process of degradation 

 has been going on within the historic period. 

 When Europeans first came in contact with 

 the Indian tribes, there was more agricul- 

 ture among them than there is now. They 

 have long descended to the condition of pure 

 hunters. The most fundamental of all the 

 elements of a civilized and settled life the 

 love and practise of agriculture has been 

 lost. Development in the wrong direction 

 had done its work. ARGYLL Unity of Na- 

 iure, ch. 10, p. 253. (Burt.) 



752. DEGENERACY CONCEALED 

 Blind Crustacea of Mammoth Cave Have 

 Perfect External Eyes The Internal Organ 

 Ruined Like Decay in Moral Realm. 

 When one examines the little Crustacea 

 which have inhabited for centuries the lakes 

 of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, one is 

 at first astonished to find these animals ap- 

 parently endowed with perfect eyes. The 

 pallor of the head is broken by two black 

 pigment specks, conspicuous indeed as the 

 only bits of color on the whole blanched 

 body; and these,, even to the casual ob- 

 server, certainly represent well-defined or- 

 gans of vision. But what do they with eyes 

 in these Stygian waters? There reigns an 

 everlasting night. Is the law for once at 

 fault? A swift incision with the scalpel, a 

 glance with a lens, and their secret is be- 

 trayed. The eyes are a mockery. Externally 

 they are organs of vision the front of the 

 ye is perfect'; behind, there is nothing but 

 a mass of ruins. The optic nerve is a 

 shrunken, atrophied, and insensate thread. 

 These animals have organs of vision, and yet 

 they have no vision. They have eyes, but 

 they see not. . . . The soul undergoing 

 degeneration . . . possesses the power of 

 absolute secrecy. When all within is fester- 

 ing decay and rottenness, a Judas, without 

 anomaly, may kiss his Lord. This invisible 

 consumption, like its fell analogue in the 

 natural world, may even keep its victim 

 beautiful while slowly slaying it. Exactly 

 Avhat Christ said of men [Matt, xiii, 14, 15]. 

 DRUMMOND Natural Law in the Spiritual 

 World, essay 2, p. 101. (H. Al.) 



753. DEGENERACY DUE TO REA- 

 SON False Reasoning Produces Unnatural 

 Vices Evolution of Degradation. The gift 

 of reason is the very gift by means of 

 which error in belief, and vice in character, 

 are carried from one stage of development to 

 another, until at last they may, and they 

 often do, result in conditions of iife and con- 

 duct removed by an immeasurable distance 

 from those which are in accordance with the 

 order and with the analogies of Nature. 

 These are the conditions of life, very much 

 lower, as we have seen, than those which 

 prevail among the brutes, which it is now 

 the fashion to assume to be the nearest type 

 of the conditions from which the human race 

 began its course. They are, in reality and 

 on the contrary, conditions which could not 



possibly have been reached except after a 

 very long journey. They are the goal at 

 which men have arrived after running for 

 many generations in a wrong direction. 

 They are the result of evolution they are 

 the product of development. But it is the 

 evolution of germs whose growth is noxious. 

 ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 10, p. 262. 

 (Burt.) 



754. DEGENERATION FROM DIS- 

 USE Eyes and Wings. It is clear that 

 degeneration as a result of disuse can only 

 take place in an organ the activity of which 

 depends upon its exercise, so that a real 

 effect is produced by the discharge of func- 

 tion. The act of seeing involves certain 

 chemical changes in the retina of the eye, 

 and perhaps even in the optic nerve, proc- 

 esses which do not take place when the eye 

 is no longer exposed to light. Flying in- 

 volves metabolism in the muscles which 

 move the wings, and this also ceases when 

 flight is at an end. So that an actual retro- 

 gressive influence is exerted on certain parts 

 of the eye and on the muscles by disuse. 

 WEISMANN Heredity, vol. ii, p. 18. (Cl. P., 

 1892.) 



755. 



Inaction Self-sup- 



porting Organs of Parasites Perish Ease 

 the Ruin of Man and Nations. " Any new 

 set of conditions," says Ray Lankester, " oc- 

 curring to an animal which render its food 

 and safety very easily attained seems to lead 

 as a rule to degeneration; just as an active 

 healthy man sometimes degenerates when he 

 becomes suddenly possessed of a fortune ; or 

 as Rome degenerated when possessed of the 

 riches of the ancient world. The habit of 

 parasitism clearly acts upon animal organi- 

 zation in this way. Let the parasitic life 

 once be secured, and away go legs, jaws, 

 eyes, and ears; the active, highly gifted 

 crab, insect, or annelid may become a mere 

 sac, absorbing nourishment and laying 

 eggs." DRUMMOND Natural Law in the 

 Spiritual World, essay 10, p. 310. (H. Al.) 



756. DELIBERATION AND CHOICE 

 FUNCTIONS OF CEREBRUM Prudence a 

 Virtue in Higher Animals Few of Their 

 Acts Mechanical. No animal without it 

 [the cerebrum or higher brain] can delib- 

 erate, pause, postpone, nicely weigh one mo- 

 tive against another, or compare. Prudence, 

 in a word, is for such a creature an impos- 

 sible virtue. Accordingly we see that Nature 

 removes those functions in the exercise of 

 which prudence is a virtue from the lower 

 centers and hands them over to the cere- 

 brum. Wherever a creature has to deal with 

 complex features of the environment, pru- 

 dence is a virtue. The higher animals have 

 so to deal; and the more complex the fea- 

 tures, the higher we call the animals. The 

 fewer of his acts, then, can such an animal 

 perform without the help of the organs in 

 question. In the frog many acts devolve 

 wholly on the lower centers; in the bird 



