391 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Life 



and direct the body's highest acts equally 

 with lower nervous operations. Cells in the 

 skin repair our wounds and throw off other 

 cells which are cast away as the outer skin 

 wears. The bone-cells renew and repair that 

 dense structure, and build up the solid por- 

 tions of the frame. In a word, every act of 

 life is performed by the cells, each group of 

 which -remains distinct as a colony of work- 

 ers charged with the performance of a 

 specific duty. Truly, then, it may be held 

 that our life is a divided existence physic- 

 ally; while from another point of view it is 

 an harmonious existence, because of the per- 

 fect cooperation of these wonderful workers 

 of the body the living cells. ANDREW WIL- 

 SON Glimpses of Nature, ch. 25, p. 82. 

 (Hum., 1892.) 



1907. LIFE, PROCESSES OF, BE- 

 YOND VOLITION The Physical Man Largely 

 an Automaton Natural Laws Bear Him 

 On. Men need only reflect on the automatic 

 processes of their natural body to discover 

 that this is the universal law of life. What 

 does any man consciously do, for instance, 

 in the matter of breathing? What part 

 does he take in circulating the blood, in 

 keeping up the rhythm of his heart? What 

 control has he over growth? What man by 

 taking thought can add a cubit to his stat- 

 ure? What part voluntarily does man take 

 in secretion, in digestion, in the reflex ac- 

 tions? In point of fact is he not after all 

 the veriest automaton, every organ of his 

 body given him, every function arranged for 

 him, brain and nerve, thought and sensa- 

 tion, will and conscience, all provided for 

 him ready made ? DKUMMOND Natural Law 

 in the Spiritual World, essay 8, p. 275. 

 (H. Al.) 



1908. LIFE REVERSES RULES OF 

 THE INORGANIC Motion Characterizes 

 Life. The chemist equally regards chemical 

 change in a body as the effect of the action 

 of something external to the body changed. 

 A chemical compound once formed would 

 persist forever if no alteration took place 

 in surrounding conditions. 



But to the student of life the aspect of 

 Nature is reversed. Here, incessant, and, so 

 far as we know, spontaneous change is the 

 rule, rest the exception the anomaly to be 

 accounted for. Living things have no 

 inertia and tend to no equilibrium. HUX- 

 LEY Lay Sermons, serm. 5, p. 73. (A., 

 1895.) " 



1909. LIFE RUNS IN GROOVES OF 

 HABIT Instinct and Reason. When we look 

 at living creatures from an outward point of 

 view, one of the first things that strike us is 

 that they are bundles of habits. In wild 

 animals, the usual round of daily behavior 

 seems a necessity implanted at birth; in 

 animals domesticated, and especially in 

 man. it seems, to a great extent, to be the 

 result of education. The habits to which 

 there is an innate tendency are called in- 

 stincts; some of those due to education 



would by most persons be called acts of rea- 

 son. It thus appears that habit covers a 

 very large part of life, and that one engaged 

 in studying the objective manifestations of 

 mind is bound at the very outset to define 

 clearly just what its limits are. JAMES 

 Psychology, vol. i, ch. 4, p. 104. (H. H. & 

 Co., 1899.) 



1910. LIFE, SOCIAL, DEPENDS UP- 

 ON MOTHERHOOD So Ethics and Religion 

 Through Infancy to the Kingdom of Heav- 

 en. See then what the savage mother and 

 her babe have brought into the world. When 

 the first mother awoke to her first tender- 

 ness and warmed her loneliness at her in- 

 fant's love, when for a moment she forgot 

 herself and thought upon its weakness or its 

 pain, when by the most imperceptible act or 

 sign or look of sympathy she expressed the 

 unutterable impulse of her motherhood, the 

 touch of a new creative hand was felt upon 

 the world. However short the earliest in- 

 fancies, however feeble the sparks they 

 fanned, however long heredity took to gather 

 fuel enough for a steady flame, it is certain 

 that once this fire began to warm the cold 

 hearth of Nature and give humanity a heart, 

 the most stupendous task of the past was 

 accomplished. ..." From of old we have 

 heard the monition, * Except ye be as babes 

 ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven ' ; the 

 latest science now shows us tho in a very 

 different sense of the words that unless we 

 had been as babes, the ethical phenomena 

 which give all its significance to the phrase 

 ' Kingdom of heaven ' would have been non- 

 existent for us. Without the circumstances 

 of infancy we might have become formidable 

 among animals through sheer force of sharp- 

 wittedness. But except for these circum- 

 stances we should never have comprehended 

 the meaning of such phrases as ' self-sacri- 

 fice ' or ' devotion.' The phenomena of social 

 life would have been omitted from the his- 

 tory of the world, and with them the phe- 

 nomena of ethics and religion." [Fiske, 

 "Cosmic Philosophy," vol. ii, p. 363.] 

 DBUMMOND Ascent of Man. ch. 8, p. 290. ( J. 

 P., 1900.) 



1911. LIFE, SOCIAL, QUALITIES 

 THAT GIVE PREEMINENCE IN Struggle 

 in Conversation. In every conversation 

 there is a victor and a vanquished, not alone 

 because for the moment, or later, the inter- 

 locutor renounces [his own] ideas for those 

 of others, but still more because one of the 

 speakers takes, as we say, the de [the die 

 i. e., the engrossing share] of the conversa- 

 tion. The one takes it, the other allows 

 him to. In general, mental superiority 

 establishes this subordination, but su- 

 periority alone is not sufficient. There is 

 also necessary a certain eloquence, a certain 

 dash of assurance and audacity. In the gen- 

 eral conversations of the salons these subsid- 

 iary qualities are still more indispensable 

 than in friendly chat between two. One who 

 is obscure or unknown discovers that even 



