291 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Ban? 11 



which Nature gives to us are not presu- 

 mably right, but, on the contrary, are pre- 

 sumably wrong. . . . Man is no part 

 of Nature. His mind does not reflect her 

 laws. On the contrary, his intellect is sep- 

 arated by such a gulf from those laws that 

 it tends of necessity to misinterpret and 

 misconceive them. The very forms in which 

 our perceptions and our conceptions are 

 molded are forms which [are assumed to] 

 have no counterpart outside the organism 

 through which we see and think. ARGYLL 

 Unity of Nature, ch. 5, p. 102. (Burt.) 



1415. GULF BETWEEN MAN AND 

 BRUTE No one is more strongly convinced 

 than I am of the vastness of the gulf be- 

 tween civilized man and the brutes; or is 

 more certain that whether from them or not, 

 he is assuredly not of them. No one is less 

 disposed to think lightly of the present dig- 

 nity, or despairingly of the future hopes, of 

 the only consciously intelligent denizen of 

 this world. HUXLEY Man's Place in Nature, 

 p. 234. (Hum.) 



1416. GULF BETWEEN ORGANIC AND 

 INORGANIC Between the living and the 

 non-living there is a great gulf fixed; and 

 the indissoluble connection which somehow, 

 nevertheless, we know to exist between them 

 is a connection which does not fill up that 

 gulf, but is kept up by some bridge being, 

 as it were, artificially built across it. This 

 unity, like the other unities of nature, is 

 not a unity consisting of mere continuity 

 of substance. It is not founded upon same- 

 ness, but, on the contrary, rather upon dif- 

 ference, and even upon antagonisms. AR- 

 GYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 2, p. 33. ( Burt. ) 



1417. GULF STREAM, INFLUENCE OF 



Moderates Climate of Western Europe. 

 But the effects of the Gulf Stream on the cli- 

 mate of the North Atlantic Ocean are far 

 more remarkable. This most powerful of 

 known currents has its source in the Gulf or 

 Sea of Mexico, which, like the Mediterranean 

 and other close seas in temperate or low lat- 

 itudes, is warmer than the open ocean in 

 the same parallels. The temperature of the 

 Mexican sea in summer is, according to 

 Rennel, 86 P., or at least 7 above that 

 of the Atlantic in the same latitude. From 

 this great reservoir or caldron of warm 

 water a constant current pours forth 

 through the Straits of Bahama at the rate 

 of 3 or 4 miles an hour; it crosses the 

 ocean in a northeasterly direction, skirt- 

 ing the great Bank of Newfoundland, where 

 it still retains a temperature of 8 above 

 that of the surrounding sea. It reaches the 

 Azores in about 78 days, after flowing near- 

 ly 3,000 geographical miles, and from thence 

 it sometimes extends its course a thousand 

 miles farther, so as to reach the Bay of 

 Biscay, still retaining an excess of 5 above 

 the mean temperature of that sea. As it 

 has been known to arrive there in the 

 months of November and January, it may 

 tend greatly to moderate the cold of winter 



in countries on the west of Europe. LYELL. 

 Principles of Geology, bk. i, ch. 7, p. 95. 



(A., 1854.) 



1418. HABIT A RESULT OF BODILY 

 ORGANISM I believe that we are subject to 

 the law of habit in consequence of the fact 

 that we have bodies. The plasticity of the 

 living matter of our nervous system, in 

 short, is the reason why we do a thing with 

 difficulty the first time, but soon do it 

 more and more easily,~and finally, with 

 sufficient practise, do it semi-mechanically, 

 or with hardly any consciousness at all. 

 Our nervous systems have (in Dr. Carpen- 

 ter's words) grown to the way in which 

 they have been exercised, just as a sheet 

 of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, 

 tends to fall forever afterward into the 

 same identical folds. Habit is thus a sec- 

 ond nature. JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 

 8, p. 65. (H. H. & Co., 1900.) 



1419. HABIT BEST CONQUERED BY 

 SHARP AND SUDDEN CHANGE " Tapering- 

 off " Rarely Practicable. The question of 

 " tapering-off," in abandoning such habits 

 as drink and opium-indulgence, comes in 

 here, and is a question about which experts 

 differ within certain limits, and in regard 

 to what may be best for an individual case. 

 In the main, however, all expert opinion 

 would agree that abrupt acquisition of the 

 new habit is the best way, if there be a real 

 possibility of carrying it out. We must be 

 careful not to give the will so stiff a task 

 as to insure its defeat at the very outset; 

 but, provided one can stand it, a sharp pe- 

 riod of suffering, and then a free time, is 

 the best thing to aim at, whether in giving 

 up a habit like that of opium, or in simply 

 changing one's hours of rising or of work. 

 It is surprising how soon a desire will die 

 of inanition if it be never fed. JAMES Psy- 

 chology, vol. i, ch. 4, p. 124. (H. H. ft. 

 Co., 1899.) 



1420. HABIT, HEREDITY OF Horses, 

 Dogs, and Birds, Apparent Heredity among* 

 Darwin says, "A horse is trained to cer- 

 tain paces, and the colt inherits similar con- 

 sensual movements." But selection of the 

 constitutional tendency to these paces, and 

 imitation of the mother by the colt, may 

 have been the real causes. The evidence, 

 to be satisfactory, should show that such 

 influences were excluded. Men acquire pro- 

 ficiency in swimming, waltzing, walking, 

 smoking, languages, handicrafts, religious 

 beliefs, etc., but the children only appear to 

 inherit the innate abilities or constitutional 

 proclivities of their parents. Even the songs 

 of birds, including their call-notes, are no 

 more inherited than is language by man 

 (" Descent of Man," p. 47) . They are learned 

 from the parent. Nestlings, which acquire 

 the song of a distinct species, " teach and 

 transmit their new song to their offspring." 

 If use-inheritance has not fixed the song of 

 birds, why should we suppose that in a 

 single generation it has transmitted a new- 



