375 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Language 

 aw 



destinies, as if there were no gulf to divide 

 us from them. NIEBTJHB Romische Ge- 

 schichte, preface. (Translated for Scientific 

 Side-Lights.) 



1833. LANGUAGE UNFOLDED 

 FROM DEPTHS OF THOUGHT Lan- 

 guages, as intellectual creations of man, and 

 as closely interwoven with the development 

 of mind, are, independently of the national 

 form which they exhibit, of the greatest 

 importance in the recognition of similarities 

 or differences in races. This importance 

 is especially owing to the clew which a com- 

 munity of descent affords in threading that 

 mysterious labyrinth in which the connec- 

 tion of physical powers and intellectual 

 forces manifests itself in a thousand differ- 

 ent forms. . . . Language is a part and 

 parcel of the history of the development of 

 mind; and however happily the human in- 

 tellect, under the most dissimilar physical 

 conditions, may unfettered pursue a self- 

 chosen track, and strive to free itself from 

 the dominion of terrestrial influences, this 

 emancipation is never perfect. There ever 

 remains, in the natural capacities of the 

 mind, a trace of something that has been 

 derived from the influences of race or of 

 climate, whether they be associated with a 

 land gladdened by cloudless azure skies or 

 with the vapory atmosphere of an insular 

 region. As, therefore, richness and grace of 

 language are unfolded from the most luxu- 

 riant depths of thought, we have been un- 

 willing wholly to disregard the bond which 

 so closely links together the physical world 

 with the sphere of intellect and of the feel- 

 ings by depriving this general picture of 

 Nature of those brighter lights and tints 

 which may be borrowed from considerations, 

 however slightly indicated, of the relations 

 existing between races and languages. 

 HUMBOLDT Cosmos, vol. i, p. 357. (H., 1897.) 



1 834. LANGUAGE, VALUE OF THE 

 STUDY OF Versatility and Flexibility of 

 Mind The End To Be Aimed at in Second- 

 ary Instruction. All experts agree that the 

 preparatory training of students of the gym- 

 nasium is superior to that of those who 

 graduate from any other institution of 

 learning, because it produces greater fa- 

 cility in the faculty of thinking, furnishing 

 more power in finding one's way in the do- 

 main of the various new disciplines that 

 are taken up. If that is true and the fact 

 cannot be denied the reason for it can only 

 be traced to the language-instruction which 

 is the thing that distinguishes the plan of 

 instruction in the gymnasium from the other 

 secondary schools. And, in fact, instruction 

 in language can be designated a most emi-. 

 nent means of training. ... By means 

 of it the student attains a certain versatility 

 and flexibility of mind that enable him al- 

 ways to find his way in those forms of 

 thought best corresponding to the specific 

 departments of knowledge or to the fields 

 of research. KLEINWACHTER Zur Frage des 



naturivissenschaftlichen Unterrichts 

 (Deutsche Zeit- und Streit-Fragen, p. 246 ) . 

 (Translated for Scientific Side-Lights.) 



1835. LANGUAGE WOMAN'S SPE- 

 CIALTY Source of Man's Taciturnity. The 

 Mexicans say, " A woman is the best dic- 

 tionary." This unpremeditated confession 

 is based upon an early induction made by 

 the aborigines of that country centuries ago. 

 Savage men, in hunting and fishing, are 

 much alone, and have to be quiet, hence 

 their taciturnity; but women are together, 

 and chatter all day long. Away from the 

 centers of culture women are still the best 

 dictionaries, talkers, and letter - writers. 

 MASON Woman's Share in Primitive Cul- 

 ture, ch. 9, p. 190. (A., 1894.) 



1836. LAVA, CAVERNS IN Subter- 

 ranean Grottoes and Vaults of Etna. Men- 

 tion was made of the entrance of a lava- 

 stream into a subterranean grotto, whereby 

 the foundations of a hill were partially un- 

 dermined. Such underground passages are 

 among the most curious features on Etna, 

 and appear to have been produced by the 

 hardening of the lava during the escape of 

 great volumes of elastic fluids, which are 

 often discharged for many days in succession 

 after the crisis of the eruption is over. Near 

 Nicolosi, not far from Monti Rossi, one of 

 these great openings may be seen, called the 

 Fossa della Palomba, 625 feet in circumfer- 

 ence at its mouth, and seventy-eight deep. 

 After reaching the bottom of this we enter 

 another dark cavity, and then others in suc- 

 cession, sometimes descending precipices by 

 means of ladders. At length the vaults ter- 

 minate in a great gallery ninety feet long 

 and from fifteen to fifty broad, beyond which 

 there is still a passage never yet explored, 

 so that the extent of these caverns remains 

 unknown. The walls and roofs of these 

 great vaults are composed of rough and 

 bristling scoriae of the most fantastic forms. 

 LYELL Principles of Geology, bk. ii, ch. 25, 

 p. 401. (A., 1854.) 



1837. LAW AS AN OBSERVED OR- 

 DER OF FACTS Cause of Chemical Phe- 

 nomena Unknown. The first and, so to 

 speak, the lowest sense in which law is ap- 

 plied to natural phenomena is that in which 

 it is used to express simply " an observed 

 order of facts " that is to say, facts which 

 under the same conditions always follow 

 each other in the same order. In this sense 

 the laws of Nature are simply those facts 

 of Nature which recur according to a rule. 

 It is not necessary to the legitimate appli- 

 cation of law in this sense that the cause 

 of any observed order of facts should be 

 at all known or even guessed at. The force 

 or forces to which that order is due may be 

 hid in total darkness. ... A very large 

 proportion of the laws of every science are 

 laws of this kind and in this sense. For 

 example, in chemistry the behavior of dif- 

 ferent substances towards each other, in re- 



