349 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Instinct 

 Intellect 



advantage propensities which propel the in- 

 dividuals of certain species to draw near 

 to their fellows. LYELL Principles of Ge- 

 ology, bk. iii, ch. 35, p. 596. (A., 1854.) 



1 7 O 7 . INSTINCTS OF LABOR BLIND 



AND RECKLESS Deadly Trades Never Lack 

 Recruits. There are certain results for the 

 attainment of which the natural instincts 

 of individual men not only may be trusted, 

 but must be trusted as the best and indeed 

 the only guide. There are other results of 

 which as a rule those instincts will take no 

 heed whatever, and for the attainment of 

 which, if they are to be attained at all, the 

 higher faculties of our nature must impose 

 their will in authoritative expressions of 

 human law. In all that wide circle of oper- 

 ations which have for their immediate result 

 the getting of wealth there is a sagacity and 

 a cunning in the instincts of labor and in 

 the love of gain compared with which all 

 legislative wisdom is ignorance and folly. 

 But the instincts of labor, having for their 

 conscious purpose the acquisition of wealth, 

 are instincts which, under the stimulus and 

 necessities of modern society, are blind to 

 all other results whatever. They override 

 even the love of life; they silence even the 

 fear of death. Trades in which the laborers 

 never reach beyond middle life trades in 

 which the work is uniformly fatal within 

 a few years trades in which those who 

 follow them are liable to loathsome and 

 torturing disease all are filled by the en- 

 listment of an unfailing series of recruits. 

 If, therefore, there be some things desirable 

 or needful for a community other than the 

 acquisition of wealth if mental ignorance 

 and physical degeneracy be evils dangerous 

 to social and political prosperity, then these 

 results cannot and must not be trusted to 

 the instincts of individual men. And why? 

 Because the few motives which bear upon 

 them, and which consequently determine 

 their conduct, have become almost as imperi- 

 ous as the motives which determine the con- 

 duct of the lower animals. ARGYLL Reign of 

 Law, ch. 7, p. 213. (Burt.) 



1708. INSTINCTS VS. IMPULSES 



Memory and Reason Regulate Human Im- 

 pulses Blindness of Mere Instincts. Noth- 

 ing is commoner than the remark that man 

 differs from lower creatures by the almost 

 total absence of instincts, and the assump- 

 tion of their work in him by "reason." 

 . . . Man has a far greater variety of 

 impulses than any lower animal; and any 

 one of these impulses taken in itself is as 

 " blind " as the lowest instinct can be ; but 

 owing to man's memory, power of reflection, 

 and power of inference, they come each one 

 to be felt by him after he has once yielded 

 to them and experienced their results in 

 connection with a foresight of those results. 

 In this condition an impulse acted out may 

 be said to be acted out, in part at least, 

 for the sake of its results. JAMES Psychol- 

 ogy, vol. ii, ch. 24, p. 389. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1709. INSTRUCTION MIGHT SAVE 

 LIFE Need of Object-lessons The Miners 

 Safety-lamp. Sir Humphry Davy, after 

 having assured himself of the action of wire 

 gauze [in cutting off a gas-flame], applied it 

 to the construction of a lamp which should 

 enable the miner to carry his light into an 

 explosive atmosphere. He surrounded a 

 common oil-lamp by a cylinder of wire 

 gauze. So long as this lamp is fed by pure 

 air the flame burns with tire ordinary bright- 

 ness of an oil flame; but when the miner 

 comes into an atmosphere containing " fire- 

 damp " his flame enlarges and becomes less 

 luminous. This enlargement of the flame 

 ought to be taken as a warning to retire. 

 Still, tho a continuous explosive atmos- 

 phere extends from the air outside through 

 the meshes of the gauze to the flame within, 

 ignition is not propagated across the gauze. 

 A defect in the gauze, the destruction of the 

 wire at any point by oxidation, would cause 

 explosion. The rapid motion of the lamp 

 through the air, or the impact of a " blow- 

 er " upon the lamp, might also force the 

 flame through the meshes. In short, a cer- 

 tain amount of intelligence and caution is 

 necessary in using the lamp. This intelli- 

 gence, unhappily, is not always possessed, 

 nor is this caution always exercised, and 

 the consequence is that even with the safety- 

 lamp explosions still occur. Before permit- 

 ting a man or boy to enter a mine would 

 it not be well to place these results, by ex- 

 periment, visibly before him? Mere advice 

 will not enforce caution; but let the miner 

 have the physical image of what he is to 

 expect clearly and vividly before his mind 

 and he will find it a restraining force and a 

 monitory influence long after the effect of 

 cautioning words has passed away. TYN- 

 DALL Heat a Mode of Motion, lect. 9, p. 262. 

 (A., 1900.) 



1710. INTELLECT, BOUNDARY- 

 LINE OF Ordinary Lessons of Science Fail. 

 The reverse process of the production of 

 motion by consciousness is equally unpre- 

 sentable to the mind. We are here, in fact, 

 on the boundary-line of the intellect, where 

 the ordinary canons of science fail to extri- 

 cate us. If we are true to these canons we 

 must deny to subjective phenomena all in- 

 fluence on physical processes. The mechan- 

 ical philosopher, as such, will never place 

 a state of consciousness and a group of mole- 

 cules in the relation of mover and moved. 

 Observation proves them to interact ; but in 

 passing from the one to the other we meet 

 a blank which the logic of deduction is un- 

 able to fill. TYNDALL Fragments of Sci- 

 ence, vol. ii, ch. 15, p. 408. (A., 1900.) 



1711. INTELLECT DEVELOPED BY 

 STRUGGLE FOR LIFE AMONG MEN A 

 Struggle of Brains. The result of the strug- 

 gle for life is that in the long run that 

 which is better because more perfect con- 

 quers that which is weaker and imperfect. 

 In human life, however, this struggle for 



