Life 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



392 



in society it would be impossible to seize the 

 uorld and keep it long enough to set forth 

 his ideas. In the salon, eloquence and au- 

 dacity are indispensable. We often see also 

 a chatterer not possessing a single original 

 idea exercising great influence upon the 

 drawing-room, while men of real merit are 

 completely effaced by reason of modesty and 

 timidity. Novicow Les Luttes entre So- 

 cietes humaines et leur Phases successives. 

 (Translated for Scientific Side-Lights. ) 



1912. LIFE, SPIRITUAL, OF MAN 

 Mysterious Communion of Nature with. 

 The impression which is left on the mind by 

 the aspect of natural scenery is less deter- 

 mined by the peculiar character of the re- 

 gion than by the varied nature of the light 

 through which we view, or mountain or 

 plain, sometimes beaming beneath an azure 

 sky, sometimes enveloped in the gloom of 

 lowering clouds. Thus, too, descriptions of 

 Nature affect us more or less powerfully in 

 proportion as they harmonize with the con- 

 dition of our own feelings. For the phys- 

 ical world is reflected with truth and ani- 

 mation on the inner susceptible world of the 

 mind. Whatever marks the character of a 

 landscape the profile of mountains, which 

 in the far and hazy distance bound the hori- 

 zon; the deep gloom of pine forests; the 

 mountain torrent, which rushes headlong to 

 its fall through overhanging cliffs all stand 

 alike in an ancient and mysterious com- 

 munion with the spiritual life of man. 

 From this communion arises the nobler por- 

 tion of the enjoyment which Nature affords. 

 HUMBOLDT Views of Nature, p. 154. 

 (Bell, 1896.) 



1913. LIFE SUBJUGATES CHEMIS- 

 TRY Whatever the relationship may be 

 between living organisms and the elements, 

 or elementary forces of external Nature, it 

 certainly is not the relationship of mere 

 chemical affinities. On the contrary, the 

 union which these affinities by themselves 

 produce can only be reached through the dis- 

 solution and destruction of living bodies. 

 The subjugation of chemical forces under 

 some higher form of energy which works 

 them for the continued maintenance of a 

 separate individuality this is of the very 

 essence of life. The destruction of that 

 separateness or individuality is of the very 

 essence of death. ARGYLL Unity of Nature, 

 ch. 2, p. 34. (Burt.) 



1914. LIFE SURROUNDED BY AN 

 ATMOSPHERE OF DESTRUCTION Dis- 

 ease a Conflict between Victim and Bacteria. 

 But the action of living contagia extends 

 beyond the domain of the surgeon. The 

 power of reproduction and indefinite self- 

 multiplication which is characteristic of liv- 

 ing things, coupled with the undeviating 

 fact of contagia " breeding true," has given 

 strength and consistency to a belief long en- 

 tertained by penetrating minds, that epi- 

 demic diseases generally are the concomi- 

 tants of parasitic life. " There begins to be 



faintly visible to us a vast and destructive 

 laboratory of Nature wherein the diseases 

 which are most fatal to animal life, and 

 the changes to which dead organic matter is 

 passively liable, appear bound together by 

 what must at least be called a very close 

 analogy of causation." According to this 

 view, which, as I have said, is daily gaining 

 converts, a contagious disease may be de- 

 fined as a conflict between the person smit- 

 ten by it and a specific organism which mul- 

 tiplies at his expense, appropriating his air 

 and moisture, disintegrating his tissues, or 

 poisoning him by the decompositions inci- 

 dent to its growth. TYNDALL Floating Mat- 

 ter of the Air, essay 5, p. 288. (A., 1895.) 



1915. LIFE, TENACITY OF The Old- 

 est Thing Alive in Germany. Of all things 

 in the soil of Germany the most tenacious 

 of life is a tender rose. More than eight 

 hundred years ago the rose-bush at the 

 Cathedral of Hildesheim received special 

 care and regard as a venerable, antique 

 monument of the past. PFUHL Was 

 geboren 1st auf Erden muss zu Erd-Asche 

 werden (17 Serie). (Translated for Scien- 

 tific Side-Lights.) 



1916. LIFE THE CAUSE OF OR- 

 GANIZATION Science Has No Explanation 

 of Vital Force. This [that mind is incon- 

 ceivable except in connection with a ma- 

 terial organ] would be a very unsafe conclu- 

 sion even if the connection between our 

 bodies and our minds were of such a nature 

 that we could not conceive the separation of 

 the two. But so far is this from being the 

 case that, as Professor Tyndall most truly 

 says, " it is a connection which we know 

 only as an inexplicable fact, and we try to 

 soar in a vacuum when we seek to compre- 

 hend it." The universal testimony of 

 human speech that sure record of the deep- 

 est metaphysical truths proves that we 

 cannot but think of the body and the mind 

 as separate of the mind as our proper 

 selves, and of the body as indeed external to 

 it. Let us never forget that life, as we 

 know it here below, is the antecedent or the 

 cause of organization, and not its product; 

 that the peculiar combinations of matter 

 which are the homes and abodes of life are 

 prepared and shaped under the control and 

 guidance of that mysterious power which we 

 know as vitality; and that no discovery of 

 science has ever been able to reduce it to a 

 lower level, or to identify it with any purely 

 material force. ARGYLL Unity of Nature, 

 ch. 8, p. 182. (Burt.) 



1917. LIFE THE MIGHTIEST OF 

 FORCES Living Plants Wedge Dead Rocks 

 Asunder Prepare New Soil for Their Own 

 Growth. Living plants themselves attack 

 rocks, and by means of the acids in their 

 roots dissolve out the mineral matters re- 

 quired by the organisms. Further, their 

 roots penetrate the natural division-planes 

 of rocks and wedge these asunder ; and thus, 

 by allowing freer percolation of water, they 



