209 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Energy 

 Enjoyment 



1020. ENERGY, THE CONSERVA- 

 TION OF The sum total of all causes work- 

 ing in Nature that can produce change in 

 the physical world is as invariable as the 

 totality of the store of matter. No mani- 

 festation of force can arise out of nothing, 

 none can altogether disappear. All of the 

 changes we observe consist in the fact that 

 such a manifestation of force is expressed in 

 some other way, it only assumes another 

 form. MEYER Ueber Bestrebungen und Ziele 

 der wissenschaftlichen Chemie, p. 34. 

 (Translated for Scientific Side-Lights.) 



1021. ENERGY, THE FORM-GIVING 

 ELEMENT IN MATTER Heat Makes the 

 Difference between Solid, Liquid, and Gas. 

 From the fact that all gases expand with 

 heat and contract with cold, it is concluded 

 that the ether-vibrations we term heat are 

 the cause of the rapid motions of the gaseous 

 molecules, and that if heat was entirely ab- 

 sent the motion would cease, and, ordinary 

 cohesive attraction coming into play, the 

 molecules would fall together and form a 

 liquid or a solid. As a matter of fact, by 

 intense cold, combined with pressure, all 

 gases can be liquefied or solidified; and as, 

 on the other hand, all the solid elements can 

 be liquefied or vaporized by the intense heat 

 of the electric furnace, we conclude that all 

 matter when entirely deprived of heat is 

 solid, and with sufficient heat becomes 

 gaseous. WALLACE The Wonderful Cen- 

 tury, ch. 7, p. 55. (D. M. & Co., 1899.) 



1022. ENGINEERING FEATS OF AN- 

 TIQUITY Power of Organized Labor Time 

 A o Object. In the earliest engineering feats 

 two facts must be sharply kept before the 

 mind, to wit: That time was no object, and 

 that there were no private buildings. Sup- 

 pose that every laboring person in Chicago 

 should be immediately withdrawn from all 

 private work, and that they all should be or- 

 ganized to labor for ten years upon some 

 government building as a memorial of the 

 city's grandeur. One million hand-laborers 

 would erect a pyramid containing fifteen 

 thousand milliards of tons of earth, and the 

 mechanics would put on the top of it a 

 structure larger than all the monuments in 

 Egypt combined. MASON Aboriginal Ameri- 

 can Mechanics (Memoirs of the Interna- 

 tional Congress of Anthropology, p. 82). 

 (Sch. P. C.) 



1023. ENJOYMENT BY ILLUSION 



Made Happy by Attempting To Seem So. 

 Let us examine one of these active illusions 

 a little more fully. It would at first sight 

 seem to be a perfectly simple thing to de- 

 termine at any given moment whether we 

 are enjoying ourselves, whether our emo- 

 tional condition rises above the pleasure- 

 threshold or point of indifference and takes 

 on a positive hue of the agreeable or pleas- 

 urable. Yet there is good reason for sup- 

 posing th'at people not unfrequently deceive 

 themselves on this matter. It is, perhaps, 

 hardly an exaggeration to say that most of 



us are capable of imagining that we are hav- 

 ing enjoyment when we conform to the tem- 

 porary fashion of social amusement. It has- 

 been cynically observed that people go inta 

 society less in order to be happy than to 

 seem so, and one may add that in this sem- 

 blance of enjoyment they may, provided they 

 are not blase 1 , deceive themselves as well as 

 others. The expectation of enjoyment, the 

 knowledge that the occasion is intended to 

 bring about this result, the recognition of 

 the external signs of enjoyment in others 

 all this may serve to blind a man in the 

 earlier stages of social amusement to his 

 actual mental condition. SULLY Illusions, 

 ch. 8, p. 200. (A., 1897.) 



1024. ENJOYMENT CONDUCIVE TO 



BENEVOLENCE -Desire to Impart Pleasure. 

 We do not conceive life to be so rich in 

 enjoyments that it can afford to forego the 

 cultivation of all those which address them- 

 selves to what M. Comte terms the egotistic 

 propensities. On the contrary, we believe 

 that a- sufficient gratification of these, short 

 of excess, but up to the measure which ren- 

 ders the enjoyment greatest, is almost al- 

 ways favorable to the benevolent affections. 

 The moralization of the personal enjoyment* 

 we deem to consist, not in reducing them to 

 the smallest possible amount, but in culti- 

 vating the habitual wish to share them with 

 others, and with all others, and scorning ta 

 desire anything for oneself which is in- 

 capable of being so shared. There is only 

 one passion or inclination which is per- 

 manently incompatible with this condition 

 the love of domination, or superiority, for 

 its own sake; which implies, and is 

 grounded on, the equivalent depression of 

 other people. As a rule of conduct to be en- 

 forced by moral sanctions, we think no more 

 should be attempted than to prevent people 

 from doing harm to others, or omitting to 

 do such good as they have undertaken. De- 

 manding no more than this, society in any 

 tolerable circumstances obtains much more; 

 for the natural activity of human nature, 

 shut out from all noxious directions, will ex- 

 pand itself in useful ones. MILL Positive 

 Philosophy of Auguste Comte, p. 131. (H. 

 H. & Co., 1887.) 



1025. ENJOYMENT OF NATURE 

 LESS FREELY EXPRESSED IN GREEK 

 THAN IN HEBREW POETRY- It has often 

 been remarked that, altho the enjoyment de- 

 rived from the contemplation of Nature was 

 not wholly unknown to the ancients, the 

 feeling was, nevertheless, much more rarely 

 and less vividly expressed than in modern 

 times. In his considerations on the poetry 

 of the sentiments, Schiller thus expresses 

 himself: " If we bear in mind the beautiful 

 scenery with which the Greeks were sur- 

 rounded, and remember the opportunities 

 possessed by a people living in so genial a 

 climate of entering into the free enjoyment 

 of the contemplation of Nature, and observe 

 how conformable were their mode of 



