Life 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



386 



itself, and eating up life's " principal " in 

 place of living upon the interest represented 

 by its food. Within the bodies of these 

 white cells in the tadpole's tail microscopists 

 have been enabled actually to see the frag- 

 ments of muscle and nerve they have torn 

 from the tail substance. Little wonder that 

 the tail " grows small by degrees and beau- 

 tifully less" under such a vigorous attack; 

 and in the gills of the tadpole ( which disap- 

 pear with the tail) the same devouring pro- 

 cess is seen to proceed. Thus the disappear- 

 ance of the tail is a matter of vital action 

 as much so, indeed, in one sense, as its 

 growth. It is a new experience of life to 

 find certain of the living particles of the 

 body set apart, as in the case of the frog, 

 for the work of ridding that body of its en- 

 cumbrance, and of assisting it to rise in the 

 scale of life. WILSON Glimpses of Nature, 

 ch. 23, p. 76. (Hum., 1892.) 



1885. LIFE FOR OTHERS A Natu- 

 ral Law. They who perceive that all 

 the nature of living things is primarily 

 for the good of others . . . can no 

 longer wonder if something in our own 

 nature should impel us to acts which 

 are not to our personal liking or ad- 

 vantage; nor need they fear lest the discov- 

 ery of the natural history of the moral sense 

 may destroy its value. Should it not rather 

 " seem to follow that reasonable creatures 



.were, as the philosophical emperor observes, 

 made one for another ; and consequently that 

 man ought not to consider himself as an 

 independent individual, whose happiness is 

 not connected with that of other men; but 

 rather as a part of a whole, to the common 

 good of which he ought to conspire, and or- 

 der his ways and actions suitably, if he 

 would live according to nature"? [Berkeley, 

 " Alciphron," i, 16]. BROOKS Foundations 

 of Zoology, lect. 5, p. 119. 



1886. LIFE, FUTURE POSSIBILI- 

 TIES INVOLVED IN Difference between 

 Crystal and Shell. The difference on the 

 score of beauty between the crystal and the 

 shell, let us say once more, is imperceptible. 

 But fix attention for a moment, not upon 

 their appearance, but upon their possibili- 

 ties, upon their relation to the future, and 

 upon their place in evolution. The crystal 

 has reached its ultimate stage of develop- 

 ment. It can never be more beautiful than 

 it is now. Take it to pieces and give it the 

 opportunity to beautify itself afresh, and 

 it will just do the same thing over again. 

 It will form itself into a six-sided pyramid, 

 and go on repeating this same form ad in- 

 finitum as often as it is dissolved, and with- 

 out ever improving by a hair's breadth. Its 

 law of crystallization allows it to reach this 

 limit, and nothing else within its kingdom 

 can do any more for it. In dealing with the 

 crystal, in short, we are dealing with the 

 maximum beauty of the inorganic world. 

 But in dealing with the shell we are not 

 dealing with the maximum achievement of 



the organic world. In itself it is one of the 

 humblest forms of the invertebrate sub-king- 

 dom of the organic world; and there are 

 other forms within this kingdom so different 

 from the shell in a hundred respects that 

 to mistake them would simply be impossible. 

 DBUMMOND Natural Law in the Spiritual 

 World, essay 11, p. 345. (H. Al.) 



1887. LIFE, HIGHER, MENACED 

 BY LOWER Garden Plants Destroyed by 

 Bacteria. Reference has been made to the 

 associated work of higher vegetable life and 

 bacteria. The converse is also true. Just 

 as we have bacterial diseases affecting man 

 and animals, so also plant-life has its bac- 

 terial diseases. . . . Hyacinth disease 

 is due to a flagellated bacillus. The wilt 

 of cucumbers and pumpkins is a common 

 disease in some districts of the world, and 

 may cause wide-spread injury. It is caused 

 by a white microbe which fills the water- 

 ducts. Wilting vines are full of the same 

 sticky germs. Desiccation and sunlight have 

 a strongly prejudicial effect upon these or- 

 ganisms. Bacterial brown-rot of potatoes 

 and tomatoes is another plant-disease proba- 

 bly due to a bacillus. The bacillus passes 

 down the interior of the stem into the tu- 

 bers, and brown-rots them from within. 

 There is another form of brown-rot which 

 affects cabbages. It blackens the veins of 

 the leaves, and a woody ring which is formed 

 in the stem causes the leaves to fall off. 

 This also is due to a micro-organism which 

 gains entrance through the water-pores of 

 the leaf, and subsequently passes into the 

 vessels of the plants. NEWMAN Bacteria, 

 ch. 1, p. 35. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



1888. LIFE, HUMAN, WHOLESALE 

 DESTRUCTION OF Earthquake Followed by 

 Pestilence. In this [Calabrian] earthquake 

 40,000 persons are supposed to have per- 

 ished, and about 20,000 by the epidemics 

 which followed. Dolomieu gives a pain- 

 ful account of the appearance of the Ca- 

 labrian cities. " When I passed over to 

 Calabria," he writes, "and first beheld 

 Polistina, the scene of horror almost de- 

 prived me of my faculties; my mind was 

 filled with mingled horror and compassion; 

 nothing had escaped; all was leveled with 

 the dust; not a single house or piece of 

 wall remained; on all sides were heaps of 

 stone so destitute of form that they afforded 

 no idea of there having ever been a town 

 on this spot. The stench of the dead bodies 

 still arose from the ruins. I conversed with 

 many persons who had been buried for three, 

 four, or even five days; I questioned them 

 respecting their sensations in so dreadful a 

 situation, and they agreed that of all the 

 physical evils they endured thirst was the 

 most intolerable; and that their mental 

 agony was increased by the idea that they 

 were abandoned by their friends, who might 

 have rendered them assistance." PROCTOR 

 Notes on Earthquakes, p. 4. (Hum., 1887.) 



