SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



170 



828. DIFFICULTIES IMPOSED UPON 

 RELIGION Supernatural Power Not Denied 

 the Use of Means. By " supernatural " 

 power, do we not mean power independent 

 of the use of means, as distinguished from 

 power depending on knowledge even infi- 

 nite knowledge of the means proper to be 

 employed? This is the sense probably the 

 only sense in which the supernatural is, to 

 many minds, so difficult of belief. No man 

 can have any difficulty in believing that 

 there are natural laws of which he is igno- 

 rant; nor in conceiving that there may be 

 beings who do know them, and can use them, 

 even as he himself now uses the few laws 

 with which he is acquainted. The real diffi- 

 culty lies in the idea of will exercised with- 

 out the use of means not in the idea of will 

 exercised through means which are beyond 

 our knowledge, or beyond our reach. Now, 

 have we any right to say that belief in this 

 is essential to all religion ? If we have not, 

 then it is only putting, as so many other 

 hasty sayings do put, additional difficulties 

 in the way of religion. ARGYLL Reign of 

 Law, ch. 1, p. 9. (Burt.) 



829. DIFFICULTIES WITH THE 

 ETHER Seemingly Incompatible Qualities In- 

 volved. Indeed, I cannot agree with those 

 who regard the wave theory of light as an 

 established principle of science. That it is a 

 theory of the very highest value I freely ad- 

 mit, and that it has been able to predict the 

 phases of unknown phenomena, which ex- 

 periment has subsequently brought to light, 

 is a well-known fact. All this is true; but 

 then, on the other side, the theory requires 

 a combination of qualities in the ether of 

 space, which I find it difficult to believe are 

 actually realized. For instance, the rapid- 

 ity with which wave-motion is transmitted 

 depends, other things being equal, on the 

 elasticity of the medium. Assuming that 

 two media have the same density, their elas- 

 ticities are proportional to the squares of 

 the velocities with which a wave travels. 

 The velocity of the sound-wave in air is 

 about 1,100 feet a second or one-fifth of a 

 mile, that of the light- wave about 192,000 

 miles a second, or about one million times 

 greater; and, if we take into account cer- 

 tain causes, which, tho they tend to increase 

 the velocity of sound, can have no effect on 

 the luminiferous ether, the difference would 

 be even greater than this. . . . It is a 

 medium so thin that the earth, moving in 

 its orbit 1,100 miles a minute, suffers no 

 perceptible retardation, and yet endowed 

 with an elasticity in proportion to its den- 

 sity a million million times greater than air. 

 COOKE New Chemistry, lect. 1, p. 14. (A., 

 1899.) 



830. DIFFICULTY A SPUR TO AC- 

 TION Men of Northern Lands Lead the World. 

 Notwithstanding the obstacles opposed in 

 northern latitudes to the discovery of the 

 laws of Nature, owing to the excessive com- 

 plication of phenomena and the perpetual 



local variations that, in these climates, 

 affect the movements of the atmosphere and 

 the distribution of organic forms, it is to 

 the inhabitants of a small section of the 

 temperate zone that the rest of mankind owe 

 the earliest revelation of an intimate and 

 rational acquaintance with the forces gov- 

 erning the physical world. Moreover, it is 

 from the same zone (which is apparently 

 more favorable to the progress of reason, the 

 softening of manners, and the security of 

 public liberty) that the germs of civiliza- 

 tion have been carried to the regions of the 

 tropics, as much by the migratory movement 

 of races as by the establishment of colonies. 

 HUMBOLDT Cosmos, vol. i, int., p. 36. (H., 

 1897.) 



831. DIFFICULTY OF ATTAINING 

 TO TRUE FAMILY LIFE Easy Destruction 

 of the Ideal Without It Nations Perish 

 The Best Family Life Has Best Promise of 

 Survival. With the Christian era the ma- 

 chinery was complete; the circle finally 

 closed in, and became a secluded shrine 

 where the culture of everything holy 

 and beautiful was carried on. The path by 

 which this ideal consummation was reached 

 was not, as we have seen, a straight path; 

 nor has the integrity of the institution been 

 always preserved through the later centu- 

 ries. The difficulty of realizing the ideal 

 may be judged of by the fewness of the na- 

 tions now living who have reached it, and 

 by the multitude of peoples and tribes who 

 have vanished from the earth without at- 

 taining it. From the failure to fulfil some 

 one or other of the required conditions, peo- 

 ple after people and nation after nation 

 have come together only to disperse and 

 leave no legacy behind except the lesson as 

 yet in few cases understood of why they 

 failed. 



Yet whether the road be straight or de- 

 vious is of little moment. The one signifi- 

 cant thing is that it rises. We have reached 

 a stage in evolution at which physiological 

 gains are guarded and accentuated, if not in 

 an ethical interest, at least by ethical fac- 

 tors becoming utilized by natural selection. 

 Henceforth affection becomes a power in the 

 world; and whatever physiological adjust- 

 ments continue to go on beneath the surface, 

 the most attached families will have a better 

 chance of surviving and of transmitting 

 their moral characteristics to succeeding 

 generations. The completion of the arch of 

 family life forms one of the great, if not the 

 greatest, of the landmarks of history. 

 DRTJMMOND Ascent of Man, ch. 9, p. 315. 

 (J. P., 1900.) 



832. DIFFICULTY OF EXPERI- 

 MENTAL TESTS ON DEEP-SEA ANIMALS 

 We cannot judge at all of the amount of 

 light given out by an animal in deep water 

 by its appearance when thrown out of a 

 dredge upon the deck. Whether the phos- 

 phorescent light given out by an alcyona- 

 rian or a crustacean is more or less at a tern- 



