Half-truth 

 Harp 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



294 



month after. -We have now only to recollect 

 that the mean velocity of the earth in its 

 orbit is 1,670,000 miles a day, and a very 

 simple calculation will prove that the comet 

 will pass at fifty millions of miles from the 

 earth." FLAMMARION Popular Astronomy, 

 bk. v, ch. 1, p. 483. (A.) 



1431. HALLUCINATION PRODUCED 

 BY ACONITE Unreality Recognized. [The 

 following incident] is recorded of himself by 

 Dr. Laycock: 



" On a certain night, when a sufferer from 

 severe pain and great weakness, he took one 

 drop of Fleming's tincture of aconite, and 

 slept. About midnight he became sensible 

 of a novel state of perception, obscure at 

 first, but shaped at last into strains of 

 grand aerial music in cadences of exquisite 

 harmony, now dying away round mountains 

 in infinite perspective, now pealing along 

 oceanlike valleys. Knowing by previous 

 studies that it was a hallucination of per- 

 ception, he at last listened to ascertain the 

 cause, and found it was the rattle of a mid- 

 night train entering an adjoining railway 

 station. Thus, under the changes induced 

 in the brain by a drop of tincture of aconite, 

 the harsh rattle of the iron vibrating on the 

 air in the silence of a summer midnight was 

 changed into harplike aerial music, such not 

 only as * ear had not heard,' but no conceiv- 

 able art of man could realize. Associated 

 therewith was also a suggested terrestrial 

 vision of space of infinite extent and gran- 

 deur." CARPENTER Mental Physiology, bk. 

 ii, ch. 17, p. 643. (A., 1900.) 



1432. HAMMER A RELIC OF STONE 



AGE History Preserved in Its Name. While 

 the club has been generally a weapon, the 

 hammer has been generally an implement. 

 Its history begins with the smooth heavy 

 pebble held in the hand, such as African 

 .blacksmiths to this day forge their iron 

 with, on another smooth stone as anvil. It 

 was a great improvement to fasten the stone 

 hammer on a handle; this was done in very 

 ancient times, as is seen by the stone heads 

 being grooved or bored on purpose. . . . 

 Tho the iron hammer has superseded these, 

 a trace of the older use of stone remains in 

 our very name hammer, which is the old 

 Scandinavian hamarr, meaning both rock 

 and hammer. TYLOR Anthropology, ch. 8, 

 p. 184. (A., 1899.) 



1433. HAND GIVES MAN PREEMI- 

 NENCE The Use of the Hands Develops the 

 Intellect. How far the value of the hand as 

 a mechanical instrument depends on this 

 opposability [of the thumb, found only in 

 the human hand], any one may satisfy him- 

 self by using his hand with the thumb stiff. 

 It is plain that man's hand, enabling him to 

 shape and wield weapons and tools to sub- 

 due Nature to his own ends, is one cause of 

 his standing first among animals. It is not 

 so obvious, but it is true, that his intellec- 

 tual development must have been in no 

 small degree gained by the use of his hands. 



From handling objects, putting them in dif- 

 ferent positions, and setting them side by 

 side, he was led to those simplest kinds of 

 comparing and measuring which are the 

 first elements of exact knowledge, or science. 

 TYLOR Anthropology, ch. 2, p. 43. (A., 

 1899.) 



1434. HAPPINESS INVOLVES AN ELE- 

 MENT OF PATNLove Makes Sacrifice Pain- 

 less. In our best happiness, then, what we 

 otherwise term pain is swallowed up. It is 

 embodied and mixed up in the joy. For do 

 we not despise and loathe a man whose only 

 thought in that which he calls love is of the 

 pleasure he can receive? And, further, by 

 taking away the love, its sacrifices would be 

 felt as pain: pain emerges, or comes out, 

 from this joy by a taking away, or absence. 

 And its presence, to one who should be lov- 

 ing, might imply no evil state around him, 

 but only something wanting in himself. 

 For the very same things may be to us 

 either painful, or in the highest degree pro- 

 ductive of delight, of a delight which could 

 not be without them. HINTON The Mystery 

 of Pain, p. 21. (Hum., 1893.) 



1435. HAPPINESS VS. PERFECTED 

 CHARACTER A world of completed hap- 

 piness might well be a world of quiescence, 

 of stagnation, of automatism, of blankness; 

 the dynamics of evolution would have no 

 place in it. But suppose we say that the 

 ultimate goal of the ethical process is the 

 perfecting of human character? This form 

 of statement contains far more than the 

 other. Consummation of happiness is a nat- 

 ural outcome of the perfecting of character, 

 but that perfecting can be achieved only 

 through struggle, through discipline, 

 through resistance. It is for him that over- 

 cometh that the crown of life is reserved. 

 The consummate product of a world of evo- 

 lution is the character that creates happi- 

 ness, that is replete with dynamic possibili- 

 ties of fresh life and activity in directions 

 forever new. Such a character is the re- 

 flected image of God, and in it are contained 

 the promise and potency of life everlasting. 

 FISKE Through Nature to God, pt. ii, ch. 

 9, p. 115. (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



1436. HARBORS FORMED BY CORAL 

 REEFS Great Prospective Value. The har- 

 bors which are produced by the reef-building 

 corals, together with the various marine 

 animals and plants which are associated 

 with them, are among the most interesting 

 and important of all classes of havens. They 

 are not only in origin the most peculiar of 

 all inlets of the sea, but the conditions of 

 their development and the circumstances 

 which lead to their preservation and de- 

 struction are also curious and noteworthy. 

 Moreover, in the district of southern Florida 

 organic reefs of this nature are numerous 

 and extensive, and the ports which they 

 form, tho as yet relatively little used, are 

 destined in course of time to have great 

 value to this country. SHALER Sea and 

 Land, p. 203. (S., 1894.) 



