337 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Industry 

 Infinity 



creased duration of infancy. Now, can we 

 assign for that increased duration an ade- 

 quate cause? I think we can. The increase 

 of intelligence is itself such a cause. A 

 glance at the animal kingdom shows us no 

 such thing as infancy among the lower 

 orders. It is with warm-blooded birds and 

 mammals that the phenomena of infancy 

 and the correlative parental care really be- 

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

 ch. 6, p. 87. (H. M. &Co., 1900.) 



1651. INFECTION CAUSED BY 

 EARTHWORMS Pasteur held that earth- 

 worms are responsible for conveying the 

 spores and anthrax from buried carcasses 

 to the surface, and thus bringing about re- 

 infection. NEWMAN Bacteria, ch. 5, p. 17. 

 (G. P. P., 1899.) 



1652. INFECTION WIDELY DIS - 

 TRIBUTED Mistaken Attempt at Cleanliness 

 Caused Pollution. Within the last twelve 

 months much attention has been drawn to a 

 milk-source of typhoid infection by the epi- 

 demic of typhoid at Bristol. Dr. D. S. 

 Davies has pointed out that a brook received 

 the sewage of thirty-seven houses, the over- 

 flow of a cesspool serving twenty-two more, 

 the washings from fields over which the 

 drainage of several others was distributed, 

 and the direct sewage from at least one 

 other, and then flowed directly through a 

 certain farm. The water of this stream 

 supplied the farm pump, and the water 

 itself, it is scarcely necessary to add, was 

 highly charged with putrescent organic mat- 

 ter and micro-organisms. This water was 

 used for washing the milk-cans from this 

 particular farm, otherwise the dairy ar- 

 rangements were efficient. Part of the milk 

 was distributed to fifty-seven houses in Clif- 

 ton; in forty-one of them cases of typhoid 

 occurred. Another part of the milk was 

 sold over the counter ; twenty households so 

 obtaining it were attacked with typhoid 

 fever, and a number of further infections 

 and complications arose. This evidence 

 would appear to support the fact that milk 

 may act in the same way, tho not in such a 

 high degree, as water in the conveyance of 

 typhoid fever. NEWMAN Bacteria, ch. 6, p. 

 199. (G. P. P., 1899i) 



1653. INFINITUDE, RICHTER'S 

 VISION OF "End There Is None ! "Truly, 

 the German poet Kichter has spoken well in 

 those wonderful words which our own prose 

 poet De Quincey has so nobly translated; 

 his splendid vision aptly expresses the 

 feebleness of man's conceptions in the pres- 

 ence of the infinite wonders of creation: 



" God called up from dreams a man into 

 the vestibule of heaven, saying, ' Come thou 

 hither, and see the glory of my house/ 

 And to the angels which stood around his 

 throne he said : * Take him, strip from him 

 his robes of flesh; cleanse his vision, and 

 put a new breath into his nostrils, only 

 touch not with any change his human heart, 

 the heart that weeps and trembles.' It was 



done ; and with a mighty angel for his guide 

 the man stood ready for his infinite voyage ; 

 and from the terraces of heaven, without 

 sound or farewell, at once they wheeled 

 away into endless space. Sometimes with, 

 the solemn flight of angel wings they passed 

 through Zaharas of darkness, through wil- 

 dernesses of death, that divided the worlds 

 of life ; sometimes they swept over frontiers 

 that were quickening under prophetic mo- 

 tions from God. Then from a distance 

 which is counted only in heaven, light 

 dawned for a time through a shapeless film; 

 by unutterable pace the light swept to them, 

 they by unutterable pace to the light. In a 

 moment the rushing of planets was upon 

 them; in a moment the blazing of suns was 

 around them. 



" Then came eternities of twilight, that 

 revealed, but were not revealed. On the 

 right hand and on the left towered mighty 

 constellations, that by self-repetitions and 

 answers from afar, that by counter-posi- 

 tions, built up triumphal gates, whose ar- 

 chitraves, whose archways, horizontal, up- 

 right, rested, rose, at altitude, by spans that 

 seemed ghostly from infinitude. Without 

 measure were the architraves, past number 

 were the archways, beyond memory the 

 gates. Within were stairs that scaled the 

 eternities around; above was below and be- 

 low was above, to the man stripped of 

 gravitating body; depth was swallowed up 

 in height insurmountable, height was swal- 

 lowed up in depth unfathomable. Suddenly, 

 as thus they rode from infinite to infinite, 

 suddenly, as thus they tilted over abysmal 

 worlds, a mighty cry arose that systems 

 more mysterious, that worlds more billowy, 

 other heights and other depths, were com- 

 ing, were nearing, were at hand. 



" Then the man sighed and stopped, shud- 

 dered, and wept. His overladen heart ut- 

 tered itself in tears, and he said, ' Angel, I 

 will go no farther; for the spirit of man 

 acheth with this infinity. Insufferable is 

 the glory of God. Let me lie down in the 

 grave, and hide me from the persecution of 

 the Infinite, for end I see there is none.' 

 And from all the listening stars that shone 

 around issued a choral voice, ' The man 

 speaketh truly: end there is none that ever 

 yet we heard of ! ' ' End is there none ?' 

 the angel solemnly demanded ; ' is there in- 

 deed no end? And is this the sorrow that 

 fills you?' But no voice answered, that he 

 might answer himself. Then the angel 

 threw up his glorious hands to the heaven 

 of heavens, saying: 'End is there none to 

 the universe of God. Lo! also, there is no 

 beginning.' " PROCTOR Expanse of Heaven, 

 p. 304. (L. G. & Co., 1897.) 



1654. INFINITY A NECESSITY OF 

 HUMAN THOUGHT Space and Time 

 Matter and Force. When now we consider 

 the place in the whole system of our knowl- 

 edge which is occupied by these great funda- 

 mental conceptions of time and space, and 

 of matter and of force, and when we con- 



