Idiocy 

 Illusion 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



318 



1549. IDIOCY A MANUFACTURED 

 ARTICLE Recompense of Violated Law In- 

 temperance a Fruitful Cause of Imbecility. 

 The congenital idiot is deprived of his 

 human birthright; for he is born with such 

 a defect of brain that he cannot display 

 any or can only display very feeble and 

 imperfect mental functions. From no fault 

 of his own is he thus afflicted, seeing that 

 he must be held innocent of all offense but 

 the offense of his share of original sin; but 

 it is nowise so clear that it is not from 

 some fault of his parents. It is all too 

 true that in many cases there has ob- 

 servably been a neglect or disregard of the 

 laws which govern the progress of human de- 

 velopment through the ages. Idiocy is indeed 

 a manufactured article ; and altho we are not 

 always able to tell how it is manufactured, 

 still its important causes are known and 

 are within control. Many cases are dis- 

 tinctly traceable to parental intemperance 

 and excess. Out of 300 idiots in Massa- 

 chusetts, Dr. Howe found as many as 145 

 to be the offspring of intemperate parents; 

 and there are numerous scattered observa- 

 tions which prove that chronic alcoholism 

 in the parent may directly occasion idiocy in 

 the child. [See ALCOHOL and HEREDITY.] 

 I think, too, that there is no reasonable 

 question of the ill-effects of marriages of 

 consanguinity; that their tendency is to 

 produce degeneracy of the race, and idiocy 

 as the extremest form of such degeneracy. 

 MAUDSLEY Body and Mind, lect. 2, p. 44. 

 (A., 1898.) 



1550. IGNORANCE, CONSCIOUS, A 

 STEP TOWARD KNOWLEDGE It [Profes- 

 sor Lockyer's theory of dissociation of chem- 

 ical elements] brings us face to face with 

 the mysteries of the ultimate constitution 

 of matter, and of its relations to the vi- 

 brating medium filling space. It makes our 

 ignorance on these subjects seem at once 

 more dense and more definite. Neverthe- 

 less, this in itself (tho the saying appears 

 paradoxical) constitutes an advance. Un- 

 felt ignorance persists. Ignorance that is 

 stricken with uneasy self-consciousness is 

 already on the way to be turned into knowl- 

 edge. CLERKE History of Astronomy, pt. ii, 

 ch. 4, p. 261. (Bl., 1893.) 



1551. IGNORANCE, HUMAN, IMAG- 

 INES CAPRICE IN NATURE The flowers of 

 orchids, in their strange and endless diver- 

 sity of shape, may be compared with the 

 great vertebrate class of fish, or still more 

 appropriately with tropical homopterous in- 

 sects, which appear to us as if they had 

 been modeled in the wildest caprice, but 

 this no doubt is due to our ignorance of 

 their requirements and conditions of life. 

 DARWIN Fertilization of Orchids, ch. 7, p. 

 224. (A., 1898.) 



1552. IGNORANCE NOT THE MOTHER 

 OF THE SUBLIME Science Exalts to a Truer 

 Sublimity The Facts of Astronomy Sur- 

 pass All Poetic Ideals. Writers who know 



nothing of the true poetry of modern science 

 have supposed that the perception of the 

 sublime is born of ignorance, and that to 

 admire it is necessary not to know. This, 

 is assuredly a strange error, and the best 

 proof of it is found in the captivating charm 

 and the passionate admiration which divine 

 science now inspires, not in some rare minds, 

 only, but in thousands of intellects, in a 

 hundred thousand readers impassioned in 

 the search for truth, surprised, almost 

 ashamed, at having lived in ignorance of 

 and indifference to those splendid realities, 

 anxious to incessantly enlarge their con- 

 ception of things eternal, and feeling ad- 

 miration increasing in their dazzled minds 

 in proportion as they penetrate farther into 

 infinitude. What was the universe of Moses, 

 of Job, of Hesiod, or of Cicero, compared to 

 ours ! Search through all the religious mys- 

 teries, in all the surprises of art, painting, 

 music, the theater, or romance; search for 

 an intellectual contemplation which pro- 

 duces in the mind the impression of truth, 

 of grandeur, of the sublime, like astronom- 

 ical contemplation ! FLAMMARION Popu- 

 lar Astronomy, bk. vi, ch. 1, p. 554. (A.) 



1553. IGNORANCE OF MAN AS TO 

 RELATIONS OF ORGANIC LIFE Allevia- 

 tions of Struggle for Life. It is good 

 thus to try in imagination to give any 

 one species an advantage over another. 

 Probably in no single instance should we 

 know what to do. This ought to convince 

 us of our ignorance on the mutual relations 

 of all organic beings, a conviction as neces- 

 sary as it is difficult to acquire. All that 

 we can do is to keep steadily in mind that 

 each organic being is striving to increase 

 in a geometrical ratio; that each, at some 

 period of its life, during some season of 

 the year, during each generation, or at in- 

 tervals, has to struggle for life and to suffer 

 great destruction. When we reflect on this 

 struggle we may console ourselves with the 

 full belief that the war of Nature is not in- 

 cessant, that no fear is felt, that death is 

 generally prompt, and that the vigorous, 

 the healthy, and the happy survive and mul- 

 tiply. DARWIN Origin of Species, ch. 3, p. 

 72. (Burt.) 



1554. IGNORANCE OF NATURAL LAWS 



Air Not To Be Navigated by Buoyancy. 

 On the earth and on the sea man has at- 

 tained to powers of locomotion with which 

 in strength, endurance, and in velocity, no 

 animal movement can compare. But the air 

 is an element on which he cannot travel 

 an ocean which he cannot navigate. The 

 birds of heaven are still his envy, and on 

 the paths they tread he cannot follow. As 

 yet! for it is not certain that this exclusion 

 is to be perpetual. His failure has resulted 

 quite as much from his ignorance of natural 

 laws as from his inability to meet the con- 

 ditions which they demand. All attempts 

 to guide bodies buoyant in the air must 

 be fruitless. Balloons are mere toys. No 



