SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



184 



practical for domestic life and better skilled 

 in trades, but because they will give us citi- 

 zens with an entirely different intellectual 

 fiber. Laboratory work and shop work en- 

 gender a habit of observation, a knowledge 

 of the difference between accuracy and vague- 

 ness, and an insight into Nature's complexity 

 and into the inadequacy of all abstract ver- 

 bal accounts of real phenomena, which, once 

 wrought into the mind, remain there as life- 

 long possessions. They confer precision ; be- 

 cause, if you are doing a thing, you must do 

 it definitely right or definitely wrong. They 

 give honesty; for, when you express your- 

 self by making things, and not by using 

 words, it becomes impossible to dissimulate 

 your vagueness or ignorance by ambiguity. 

 They beget a habit of self-reliance; they 

 keep the interest and attention always 

 cheerfully engaged, and reduce the teacher's 

 disciplinary functions to a minimum. 

 JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 5, p. 35. (H. 

 H. & Co., 1900.) 



900. DOMESTICATION OF ANIMALS 



Wonderful Triumph of Humanity. No- 

 where has man pressed his hand so effect- 

 ively upon Nature as in the domestication 

 of animals. It is almost incredible that 

 ravening wolves and merciless felines should 

 become faithful dogs and purring cats ; that 

 the wild sheep and goat should descend from 

 their inaccessible fastnesses, and yield their 

 fleece and flesh and milk ; that horses, asses, 

 camels, elephants, should be induced to lend 

 their backs and limbs to lighten the loads 

 of the first common carrier. This process of 

 impressing his own qualities on wild crea- 

 tures began very early in history and has 

 continued uninterruptedly from first to last. 

 MASON The Birth of Invention. Address 

 at Centenary of Amer. Patent System, 

 Washington, D. C., 1891, Proceedings of the 

 Congress, p. 410. 



901. DOMESTICITY Woman Makes 

 Home A Child Its Center. With the phys- 

 ical program carried out to the last detail, 

 the ethical drama opened. An early result, 

 partly of her sex, and partly of her passive 

 strain, is the founding through the instru- 

 mentality of the first savage mother of a 

 new and a beautiful social state domes- 

 ticity. While man, restless, eager, hungry, 

 is a wanderer on the earth, woman makes a 

 home. And tho this home be but a platform 

 of sticks and leaves^ such as the gorilla 

 builds on a tree, it becomes the first great 

 schoolroom of the human race. For one day 

 there appears in this roofless room that 

 which is to teach the teachers of the world 

 a little child. DRUMMOND Ascent of Man, 

 ch. 8, p. 280. ( J. P., 1900.) 



902. DOMINION OF MAN OVER NA- 

 TURE Power of Coordinating Impressions 

 Analysis and Comparison of Ideas the Foun- 

 dation of Human Language. Beyond a 

 doubt, man ... in some way possesses, 

 by virtue of his superior brain, a power of 



coordinating the impressions of his senses, 

 which enables him to understand the world 

 he lives in, and by understanding to use, re- 

 sist, and even in a measure rule it. No hu- 

 man art shows the nature of this human at- 

 tribute more clearly than does language. 

 Man shares with the mammalia and birds 

 the direct expression of the feelings by emo- 

 tional tones and inter jectional cries; the 

 parrot's power of articulate utterance al- 

 most equals his own; and, by association of 

 ideas in some measure, some of the lower 

 animals have even learned to recognize words 

 he utters. But, to use words in themselves 

 unmeaning, as symbols by which to conduct 

 and convey the complex intellectual proc- 

 esses in which mental conceptions are sug- 

 gested, compared, combined, and even an- 

 alyzed, and new ones created this is a fac- 

 ulty which is scarcely to be traced in any 

 lower animal. DANIEL WILSON Anthropol- 

 ogy, ch. 2, p. 5. (Hum., 1885.) 



903. 



Control by Obedience 



to Law. A great philosopher has observed 

 that we can command Nature only by obey- 

 ing her laws; and this principle is true 

 even in regard to the astonishing changes 

 which are superinduced in the qualities of 

 certain animals and plants by domestication 

 and garden culture. . . . We can only 

 effect such surprising alterations by assist- 

 ing the development of certain instincts, or 

 by availing ourselves of that mysterious law 

 of their organization by which individual 

 peculiarities are transmissible from one gen- 

 eration to another. LYELL Principles of 

 Geology, bk. i, ch. 9, p. 151. (A., 1854.) 



9O4. DOUBT AS A DISEASE Skep- 

 ticism Carried to Absurdity Discussion 

 Preventing Action. " To one whose mind is 

 healthy thoughts come and go unnoticed; 

 with me they have to be faced, thought 

 about in a peculiar fashion, and then dis- 

 posed of as finished, and this often when I 

 am utterly wearied and would be at peace; 

 but the call is imperative. This goes on to 

 the hindrance of all natural action. If I 

 were told that the staircase was on fire and 

 I had only a minute to escape, and the 

 thought arose ' Have they sent for fire-en- 

 gines ? Is it probable that the man who has 

 the key is on hand? Is the man a careful 

 sort of person? Will the key be hanging on 

 a peg? Am I thinking rightly? Perhaps 

 they don't lock the depot ' my foot would 

 be lifted to go down; I should be conscious 

 to excitement that I was losing my chance; 

 but I should be unable to stir until all these 

 absurdities were entertained and disposed 

 of. In the most critical moments of my life, 

 when I ought to have been so engrossed as 

 to leave no room for any secondary 

 thoughts, I have been oppressed by the ina- 

 bility to be at peace. And in the most or- 

 dinary circumstances it is all the same. Let 

 me instance the other morning I went to 

 walk. The day was biting cold, but I was 

 unable to proceed except by jerks. Once I 



