333 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Incredulit 



Incredulity 

 Individuality 



dustries, but the manufacture of synthetic 

 indigo and its substitutes in the chemical 

 laboratory has so cheapened the price of 

 this product as to render unprofitable the 

 old processes. The indigo farms are there- 

 fore abandoned, and nearly the whole of the 

 indigo of commerce is now manufactured by 

 the chemist. WILEY Relations of Chemistry 

 to Industrial Progress (Address at Purdue 

 University, Lafayette, Ind., 1896, p. 28). 



1627. INDIVIDUALISM CONTRARY 

 TO NATURE'S PLAN Care Bestowed in 

 Preparing Pollen Precautions against Self- 

 fertilization of Flowers. If we consider 

 how precious a substance pollen is, and what 

 care has been bestowed on its elaboration 

 and on the accessory parts in the Orchidece 

 considering how large an amount is nec- 

 essary for the impregnation of the almost 

 innumerable seeds produced by these plants 

 considering that the anther stands close 

 behind or above the stigma, self-fertilization 

 would have been an incomparably safer and 

 easier process than the transportal of pollen 

 from flower to flower. Unless we bear in 

 mind the good effects which have been 

 proved to follow in most cases from cross- 

 fertilization, it is an astonishing fact that 

 the flowers of the Orchidece should not have 

 been regularly self-fertilized. It apparently 

 demonstrates that there must be something 

 injurious in this latter process, of which 

 fact I have elsewhere given direct proof. It 

 is hardly an exaggeration to say that Na- 

 ture tells us, in the most emphatic manner, 

 that she abhors perpetual self-fertilization. 

 DARWIN Fertilization of Orchids, ch. 9, p. 

 293. (A., 1898.) 



1628. INDIVIDUALISM GIVES 

 PLACE TO ALTRUISM Now the moment 

 a man's voluntary actions are determined 

 by conscious or unconscious reference to a 

 standard outside of himself and his selfish 

 motives, he has entered the world of ethics, 

 he has begun to live in a moral atmosphere. 

 Egoism has ceased to be all in all, and 

 altruism it is an ugly-sounding word, but 

 seems to be the only one available altruism 

 has begun to assert its claim to sovereignty. 

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

 9, p. 104. (H. M. & Co., 1900.) 



1629. INDIVIDUALITY A LAW OF 



NATURE No Organism Exactly Like Parent. 

 Equally conspicuous with the truth that 

 every organism bears a general likeness to 

 its parents, is the truth that no organism is 

 exactly like either parent. Tho similar to 

 both in generic and specific traits, and 

 usually, too, in those traits which distin- 

 guish the variety, it diverges in numerous 

 traits of minor importance. No two plants 

 are indistinguishable; and no two animals 

 are without differences. Variation is co- 

 extensive with heredity. SPENCER Biology, 

 pt. ii, ch. 9, p. 320. (A., 1900.) 



1630. INDIVIDUALITY INDE- 

 STRUCTIBLE No Complete Transference of 

 Thought. The only states of consciousness 



that we naturally deal with are found in 

 personal consciousnesses, minds, selves, con- 

 crete particular I's and you's. Each of 

 these minds keeps its own thoughts to itself. 

 There is no giving or bartering between 

 them. No thought even comes into direct 

 sight of a thought in another personal con- 

 sciousness than its own. Absolute insula- 

 tion, irreducible pluralism, is the law. It 

 seems as if the elementary psychic fact were 

 not thought or this thoucjht or that thought, 

 but my thought, every thought being owned. 

 Neither contemporaneity, nor proximity in 

 space, nor similarity of quality and content 

 are able to fuse thoughts together which are 

 sundered by this barrier of belonging to dif- 

 ferent personal minds. The breaches be- 

 tween such thoughts are the most absolute 

 breaches in Nature. JAMES Psychology, 

 vol. i, ch. 9, p. 226. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1631. INDIVIDUALITY IN SCIENCE 



Variations and Discrepancies between Com- 

 petent Observers The "Personal Equation" 

 in Observations. It was in 1823 that Bessel 

 drew attention to discrepancies in the times 

 of transits given by different astronomers. 

 The quantities involved were far from insig- 

 nificant. He was himself nearly a second 

 in advance of all his contemporaries, Arge- 

 lander lagging behind him as much as a 

 second and a quarter. Each individual, in 

 fact, was found to have a certain definite 

 rate of perception, which, under the name 

 of " personal equation," now forms so im- 

 portant an element in the correction of ob- 

 servations that a special instrument for ac- 

 curately determining its amount in each 

 case is in actual use at Greenwich. CLERKE 

 History of Astronomy, pt. i, ch. 6, p. 152. 

 (Bl., 1893.) 



1632. INDIVIDUALITY OF A RE- 

 GION Each Has a Character of Its Own. 

 As in some individual organic beings we 

 recognize a definite physiognomy, and as 

 descriptive botany and zoology are, strictly 

 speaking, analyses of animal and vegetable 

 forms, so also there is a certain natural 

 physiognomy peculiar to every region of the 

 earth. That which the painter designates 

 by the expressions " Swiss scenery " or 

 " Italian sky " is based on a vague feeling 

 of the local natural character. The azure 

 of the sky, the effects of light and shade, the 

 haze floating on the distant horizon, the 

 forms of animals, the succulence of plants, 

 the bright glossy surface of the leaves, the 

 outlines of mountains, all combine to pro- 

 duce the elements on which depends the im- 

 pression of any one region. HUMBOLDT 

 Views of Nature, p. 217. (Bell, 1896.) 



1633. INDIVIDUALITY OF MEMORY 



Seems Intuitive as Consciousness Itself. 

 To challenge the veracity of a person's 

 memory is one of the boldest things one can 

 do in the way of attacking deep-seated con- 

 viction. Memory is the peculiar domain of 

 the individual. In going back in recollec- 

 tion to the scenes of other years he is draw- 



