Intelligence 

 Intervention 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS. 



354 



equal quantities of boiling hot water, and 

 put into them two equal pieces of meat taken 

 from the same carcass two legs of mutton, 

 for instance and boil them during the same 

 time. Under one of the boilers make a small 

 fire, just barely sufficient to keep the water 

 boiling hot, or rather just beginning to boil ; 

 under the other make as vehement a fire as 

 possible, and keep the water boiling the 

 whole time with the utmost violence. The 

 meat in the boiler in which the water has 

 been kept only just boiling hot will be found 

 to be quite as well done as that in the other. 

 It will even be found to be much better 

 cooked, that is to say, tenderer, more juicy, 

 and much higher flavored." EUMFOBD quot- 

 ed by WILLIAMS in Chemistry of Cookery, 

 ch. 2, p. 17. (A., 1900.) 



1729. INTELLIGENCE SHOWN IN 

 RELICS OF STONE AGE Language the 

 True Mold of Mind. The flints and arrow- 

 heads, the celts and hammers, of early man 

 are fossil intelligence; the remains of 

 primitive arts and industries are petrified 

 mind. But there is one mold into which 

 mind has run more large and beautiful than 

 any of these. When its contents are exam- 

 ined they carry us back not only to what 

 men worked at with their hands, but to 

 what they said to one another as they 

 worked and what they thought as they 

 spoke. That mold is language. DRUMMOND 

 Ascent of Man, p. 147. ( J. P., 1900.) 



1730. INTELLIGENCE THE FINAL 

 VICTOR The Evolution of Mind. Nature is 

 full of new departures; but never since 

 time began was there anything approaching 

 in importance that period when the slumber- 

 ing animal brain broke into intelligence, and 

 the creature first felt that it had a mind. 

 From that dateless moment a higher and 

 swifter progress of the world began. Hence- 

 forth, intelligence triumphed over structural 

 adaptation. The wise were naturally selected 

 before the strong. The mind discovered better 

 methods, safer measures, shorter cuts. So 

 the body learned to refer to it, then to defer 

 to it. As the mind was given more to do, it 

 enlarged and did its work more perfectly. 

 Gradually the favors of evolution exercise, 

 alteration, differentiation, addition which 

 were formerly distributed promiscuously 

 among the bodily organs were now lavished 

 mainly upon the brain. The gains accumu- 

 lated with accelerating velocity; and by 

 sheer superiority and fitness for its work 

 the intellect rose to commanding power and 

 entered into final possession of a monopoly 

 which can never be disturbed. DRUMMOND 

 Ascent of Man, ch. 3, p. 116. (J. P., 1900.) 



1731. INTEMPERANCE, DEBASING 

 EFFECT OF Special Degradation of Wom- 

 an Moral Influence Defeated by Morbid 

 Physical Craving. The debasing effect of 

 continued alcoholic excess is, unfortunately, 

 but too apparent. Cases like that of Hart- 

 ley Coleridge, in which it seems only to ex- 

 cite the higher part of the intellectual and 



moral nature to an irregular activity, are 

 extremely rare. Far more generally, while 

 weakening the will and exciting the lower 

 propensities, it blunts the moral sense also ; 

 and the wretched victim becomes so com- 

 pletely the slave of his tyrannical appetite 

 for drink that he is ready to gratify it at 

 any sacrifice. This moral degradation is 

 perhaps even more marked in women than 

 in men; for the drunkenness of the former 

 (especially in the upper ranks of society) 

 being usually secret at least in the first 

 instance whilst in the latter it is generally 

 open, it can only be practised by deceit and 

 fraud; and when the habit has obtained 

 such a dominance that the customary re- 

 straints are thrown aside, there is a more 

 complete abandonment of self-respect. In 

 either sex, it is the physical craving pro- 

 duced by the continued action of the stimu- 

 lant upon the nutrition of the nervous sys- 

 tem which renders the condition of the 

 habitual drunkard one with which it is pe- 

 culiarly difficult to deal by purely moral 

 means. Vain is it to recall the motives for 

 a better course of conduct, to one who is 

 already familiar with them all, but is desti- 

 tute of the will to act upon them ; the seclu- 

 sion of such persons from the reach of alco- 

 holic liquors, for a sufficient length of time 

 to free the blood from its contamination, to 

 restore the healthful nutrition of the brain, 

 and to enable the recovered mental vigor to 

 be wisely directed, seems to afford the only 

 prospect of reformation; and this cannot be 

 expected to be permanent, unless the patient 

 determinately adopts and steadily acts on 

 the resolution to abstain entirely from that 

 which, if again indulged in, will be poison 

 alike to his body and to his mind, and will 

 transmit its pernicious influence to his off- 

 spring. CARPENTER Mental Physiology, ch. 

 17, p. 652. (A., 1900.) 



1732. INTEMPERANCE, MORTAL- 

 ITY RESULTING FROM Effects of the 

 Use of Alcohol in Switzerland. In the cities 

 of Switzerland every ninth man dies, direct- 

 ly or indirectly, of the consequences of 

 drunkenness. What objection can be made 

 against these statistics? No one dares as- 

 sert that they are the production of bias. 

 Our physicians are not temperance fanatics. 

 At most, one might object that the causal 

 relations are not demonstrated in all cases, 

 that many of the patients would have died 

 even without alcohol, perhaps only a little 

 later. I do not deny that. But what cannot 

 be denied is the fact of drunkenness. The 

 physicians cannot report drunkenness as the 

 only, or the contributing, cause of death if 

 the patient has not been given to drunken- 

 ness. It is therefore a fact that every ninth 

 man in the cities of Switzerland becomes a 

 drunkard. VON BUNGE Der Kampf gegen 

 die Trinksitten (an address). (Translated 

 for Scientific Side-Lights.) 



1733. INTERCHANGE OF LAND 

 AND SEA Cities Where Ocean Once Rolled. 

 Imperfect as is our information of the 



