Kunting 

 :e 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



312 



part of us that it is so hard to eradicate, 

 especially where a fight or a hunt is prom- 

 ised as p*art of the fun. JAMES Psychology, 

 vol. ii, ch. 24, p. 411. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1520. HYPNOTISM, EFFECTS OF 



Power of Resistance Diminished Mind Fol- 

 lows Accustomed Track Judgment Be- 

 clouded. It [hypnotism] must be looked 

 upon, not as a remedy of universal service- 

 ability, but as a poison whose effect may be 

 beneficial under certain circumstances. We 

 find, of course, not only the dabbler in hyp- 

 notism who has no claim to a judgment on 

 the question, and in whose hands the prac- 

 tise of suggestion becomes a public nui- 

 sance but also the physician to whom 

 thinking men will no more deny the right to 

 employ this dangerous remedy in certain 

 circumstances than that of using any other 

 asserting that the hypnotic sleep is not 

 injurious, because it is not in itself a patho- 

 logical condition. But surely the facts of 

 post-hypnotic hallucination and the diminu- 

 tion of the power of resistance to suggestive 

 influences furnish a refutation of this state- 

 ment which no counter-arguments can 

 shake. It is a phenomenon of common ob- 

 servation that frequently hypnotized indi- 

 viduals can when fully awake be persuaded 

 of the wildest fables, and thenceforth re- 

 gard them as passages from their own ex- 

 perience. WUNDT Human and Animal Psy- 

 chology, lect. 22, p. 335. (Son. & Co., 1896.) 



1521. HYPNOTISM MAY INJURE 

 BODY AND MIND The chief danger of all 

 this [unregulated use of hypnotism], it 

 seems to me, does not lie in the abuse of 

 post-hypnotic suggestion for criminal pur- 

 poses, which may happen once in a while. 

 Crimes have hardly as yet been committed 

 by " mediums " as a result of suggestion. 

 No! the great danger is that persons of 

 insufficient medical training, working not 

 for therapeutic ends, but " in the interests 

 of science" tho there is absolutely no 

 guaranty of the real existence of their 

 scientific devotion may exert an influence 

 upon the mental and bodily life of their 

 fellow men such as, if continued for any 

 length of time together, cannot fail to be 

 injurious. WUNDT Psychology, lect. 22, p. 

 336. (Son. & Co., 1896.) 



1522. HYPOTHESIS OF A DESIGNING 

 MIND The idea or hypothesis of a design- 

 ing mind, as the author of Nature however 

 we came by it having possession of the 

 field, and being one which man, himself a 

 designer, seemingly must needs form, cannot 

 be rivaled except by some other equally ade- 

 quate for explanation, or displaced except 

 by showing the illegitimacy of the inference. 

 GRAY Darwiniana, art. 13, p. 360. (A., 

 1889.) 



1523. HYPOTHESIS OF A SOUL IS 

 SATISFYING I confess, therefore, that to 

 posit a soul influenced in some mysterious 

 way by the brain-states, and responding to 



them by conscious affections of its own, 

 seems to me the line of least logical resist- 

 ance, so far as we yet have attained. 

 JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 6, p. 181. (H. 

 H. & Co., 1899.) 



1524. HYPOTHESIS OF PRIMARY 



ELEMENTS Originated Probably in India 

 Natural Tendency of Human Mind To Seek 

 Underlying Principles of the Universe. 

 After men had for a long time, in accord- 

 ance with the earliest ideas of the Hellenic 

 people, venerated the agency of spirits, em- 

 bodied in human forms, in the creative, 

 changing, and destructive processes of Na- 

 ture, the germ of a scientific contemplation 

 developed itself in the physiological fan- 

 cies of the Ionic school. The first principle 

 of the origin of things, the first principle of 

 all phenomena, was referred to two causes 

 either to concrete material principles, the 

 so-called elements of Nature, or to processes 

 of rarefaction and condensation, sometimes 

 in accordance with mechanical, sometimes 

 with dynamic views. The hypothesis of 

 four or five materially differing elements, 

 which was probably of Indian origin, has 

 continued, from the era of the didactic poem 

 of Empedocles down to the most recent 

 times, to imbue all opinions on natural 

 philosophy a primeval evidence and monu- 

 ment of the tendency of the human mind to 

 seek a generalization and simplification of 

 ideas, not only with reference to the forces, 

 but also to the qualitative nature of matter. 

 HUMBOLDT Cosmos, vol. iii, p. 11. (H., 

 1897.) 



1525. HYPOTHESIS, THE NEBULAR 

 Formation of the Earth A Gaseous Ring 

 Detached from the Sun. Thus the earth 

 was formed by the slow condensation of a 

 gaseous ring detached from the sun, which, 

 continuing afterwards to contract and to 

 condense, gave birth later on to Venus and 

 to Mercury. The terrestrial nebula had 

 from that time an independent existence. 

 It proceeded slowly to form an immense 

 gaseous globe turning upon itself; thus 

 condensed, heated by the molecular and con- 

 stant clashing together of all the materials 

 which compose it, the new-born earth shone 

 with a feeble glimmer in the gloomy night 

 of space. 



From a gaseous condition it became 

 liquid, then solid, and doubtless it continues 

 to cool and contract even now. But its 

 mass increases from age to age by the 

 meteoric stones and shooting stars which 

 continually fall upon it (more than a hun- 

 dred thousand millions per annum). Will 

 the sun give birth to a new earth ? This 

 is not probable. For this purpose it would 

 be necessary that its rotation should be 

 enormously accelerated: it should be 219 

 times more rapid. FLAMMARION Popular 

 Astronomy, pp. 73-74. (A.) 



1526. Directions Stated 



The Best Theory That Which Best Ac- 

 counts for All the Facts. But this ingeni- 



