185 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Doing 

 Dualisi 



got arrested, my feet in a muddy pool. One 

 foot was lifted to go, knowing that it was 

 not good to be standing in water, but there 

 I was fast, the cause of detention being the 

 discussing with myself the reasons why I 

 should not stand in that pool." T. S. 

 CLOUSTON, quoted by JAMES in Psychology, 

 vol. ii, ch. 21, p. 284. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



905. DOUBT CONSECRATED BY 



DESCARTES .Hw* Search Still for Certainty. 

 The central propositions of the whole 

 "Discourse" [of Descartes on "The Right 

 Use of the Reason "] are these : There is . a 

 path that leads to truth so surely that any 

 one who wi-1 follow it must needs reach the 

 goal, whether his capacity be great or small. 

 And there is one guiding rule by which a 

 man may always find this path, and keep 

 himself from straying when he has found it. 

 This golden rule is give unqualified assent 

 to no propositions but those the truth of 

 which is so clear and distinct that they can- 

 not be doubted. The enunciation of this 

 great first commandment of science conse- 

 crated doubt. . . . When I say that 

 Descartes consecrated doubt, you must re- 

 member that it was that sort of doubt which 

 Goethe has called " the active skepticism, 

 whose whole aim is to conquer itself " ; and 

 not that other sort which is born of flip- 

 pancy and ignorance, and whose aim is only 

 to perpetuate itself, as an excuse for idle- 

 ness and indifference. But it is impossible 

 to define what is meant by scientific doubt 

 better than in Descartes's own words. After 

 describing the gradual progress of his nega- 

 tive criticism, he tells us : " For all that, I 

 did not imitate the skeptics, who doubt only 

 for doubting's sake, and pretend to be al- 

 ways undecided ; on the contrary, my whole 

 intention was to arrive at certainty, and to 

 dig away the drift and the sand until I 

 reached the rock or the clay beneath." 

 HUXLEY Lay Sermons, serm. 14, p. 323. (G. 

 P. P., 1899.') 



906. DREAD OF THE IRREVO- 

 CABLE An Undecided Character. Against 

 this impulse [to act and end suspense] we 

 have the dread of the irrevocable, which oft- 

 en engenders a type of character incapable 

 of prompt and vigorous resolve, except per- 

 haps when surprised into sudden activity. 

 These two opposing motives twine round 

 whatever other motives may be present at 

 the moment when decision is imminent, and 

 tend to precipitate or retard it. The conflict 

 of these motives so far as they alone affect 

 the matter of decision is a conflict as to 

 when it shall occur. One says " now," the 

 other says " not yet." JAMES Psychology, 

 vol. ii, ch. 26, p. 530. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



907. DREAM A BRIEF INSANITY 



Dreamer Has the Corrective of Waking 

 The Normal Mind Restored ~by Touch of Ex- 

 ternal World. The parallelism between 

 dreams and insanity has been pointed out by 

 most writers on the subject. Kant observed 

 that the madman is a dreamer awake, and 



more recently Wundt has remarked that, 

 when asleep, we " can experience nearly all 

 the phenomena which meet us in lunatic 

 asylums." The grotesqueness of the com- 

 binations, the lack of all judgment as to 

 consistency, fitness, and probability, are 

 common characteristics of the short night- 

 dream of the healthy and the long day- 

 dream of the insane. But one great differ- 

 ence marks off the two domains. When 

 dreaming, we are still sane, and shall soon 

 prove our sanity. After all, the dream of 

 the sleeper is corrected, if not so rapidly as 

 the illusion of the healthy waker. As soon 

 as the familiar stimuli of light and sound 

 set the peripheral sense-organs in activity, 

 and call back the nervous system to its com- 

 plete round of healthy action, the illusion 

 disappears, and we smile at our alarms and 

 agonies, saying, " Behold, it was a dream ! " 

 SULLY Illusions, ch. 7, p. 182. (A., 1897.) 



908. DREAM - LIFE INFLUENCES 

 OUR WAKING HOURS Thus, Paul Rade- 

 stock, in the work " Schlaf und Traum " 

 [Sleep and Dream], tells us: " When I have 

 been taking a walk, with my thoughts quite 

 unfettered, the idea has often occurred to 

 me that I had seen, heard, or thought of 

 this or that thing once before, without being 

 able to recall when, where, and in what cir- 

 cumstances. This happened at the time 

 when, with a view to the publication of 

 the present work, I was in the habit of 

 keeping an exact record of my dreams. Con- 

 sequently I was able to turn to this after 

 these impressions, and on doing so I gener- 

 ally found the conjecture confirmed that I 

 had previously dreamed something like it." 

 Scientific inquiry is often said to destroy 

 all beautiful thoughts about Nature and 

 life; but while it destroys it creates. Is it 

 not almost a romantic idea that just as our 

 waking life images itself in our dreams, so 

 our dream-life may send back some of its 

 shadowy phantoms into our prosaic every- 

 day w T orld, touching this with something of 

 its own weird beauty? SULLY Illusions, ch. 

 10, p. 275. (A., 1897.) 



909. DRUDGERY OF ENGINE-ROOM 



LESSENED The Mechanical Stoker. For a 

 good many years mechanical stokers have 

 been devised in various forms; they are 

 steadily coming into favor in improved and 

 economical types, completing the moderni- 

 zation of fuel-burning, and abolishing a 

 most oppressive form of drudgery. As the 

 automatic hopper, filled with fine coal, glides 

 to and fro above a furnace provided with 

 moving grate-bars, we behold the latest term 

 of that marvelous advance which began 

 when the savage first laboriously kindled a 

 blaze to warm his hands or to cook his 

 breakfast. ILES Flame, Electricity, and the 

 Camera, ch. 5, p. 6. (D. & McC., 1900.) 



910. DUALISM OF PLATO AND MILL 



Calvinism Truer to Scientific Thought. 

 Now in these strong assertions it seems to 

 me that the Calvinist is much more nearly 



