Logic 



Loss 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



406 



the logical nature of science itself. Now I 

 may state that my own studies in logic lead 

 me to call in question such negative infer- 

 ences. Laws of Nature are uniformities ob- 

 served to exist in the action of certain 

 material agents, but it is logically impos- 

 sible to show that all other agents must 

 behave as they do. JEVONS quoted by 

 STUCKENBERG Int. to the Study of Philoso- 

 phy, p. 403. (A. & S., 1892.) 



1983. LOGIC NO GUARANTY OF 

 TRUTH That a conclusion is deduced by 

 the strictest logical method from an uncer- 

 tain premise does not give it a hair's 

 breadth of certainty or of value. HELM- 

 HOLTZ Popular Lectures, lect. 5, p. 213. (L. 

 G. &Co., 1898.) 



1984. LOGIC OF PLAY Founds on 

 Native Impulses. The impulse to play in 

 special ways is certainly instinctive. . . . 

 All simple active games are attempts to 

 gain the excitement yielded by certain 

 primitive instincts, through feigning that 

 the occasions for their exercise are there. 

 They involve imitation hunting, fighting, 

 rivalry, acquisitiveness, and construction, 

 combined in various ways; their special 

 rules are habits, discovered by accident, 

 selected by intelligence, and propagated by 

 tradition; but unless they were founded in 

 automatic impulses, games would lose most 

 of their zest. -JAMES Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 

 24, p. 427. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1985. LONELINESS, DELIGHT IN 



Larger Fellowship with Universe. I was 

 soon upon the ice, once more alone, as I 

 delight to be at times. As a habit going 

 alone is to be deprecated, but sparingly in- 

 dulged in it is a great luxury. There are no 

 doubt moods when the mother is glad to get 

 rid of her offspring, the wife of her hus- 

 band, the lover of his mistress, and when it 

 is not well to keep them together. And so, 

 at rare intervals, it is good for the soul to 

 feel the full influence of that " society where 

 none intrudes." When the work is clearly 

 within your power, when long practise has 

 enabled you to trust your own eye and judg- 

 ment in unraveling crevasses, and your own 

 ax and arm in subduing their more serious 

 difficulties, it is an entirely new experience 

 to be alone amid those sublime scenes. The 

 peaks wear a more solemn aspect, the sun 

 shines with a more effectual fire, the blue 

 of heaven is more deep and awful, and the 

 hard heart of man is often made as tender 

 as a child's. You contract a closer friend- 

 ship for the universe in virtue of your more 

 intimate contact with its parts. TYNDALL 

 Hours of Exercise in the Alps, ch. 10, p. 116. 

 (A., 1898.) 



1986. LONGEVITY AMONG THE 



JEWS Relatively Slight Infant Mortality. 

 The duration of life among the Israelites is 

 notably much greater than that among 

 Christians. Even in infancy the mortality 

 of the first is relatively less than that of the 

 latter. In the county of Wieselburg, where 



observations were made for twenty-three 

 years, the mortality during the first year 

 of life was as follows: 



Among 1 ,000 Jewish children '. 41 deaths 



" l,OuOGerman M 123 " 



" ], 000 Hungarian " ...167 " 



1,000 Croatian " 146.9 



The age of twenty is attained : 

 By 520.0 Jews in a thousand. 

 " 513.0 Germans in Altenburg. 

 " 445.8 Hungarians in Mether. 

 " 395.4 Croats in Galtendorf. 



According to these results, the average 

 life for the Israelites is 46.5 years, for the 

 Germans 26.7, for the Croats 20.2; for the 

 Hungarians the absence of statistics of birth 

 prevents an estimate. For Austria the av- 

 erage age is 27.5. WALTERS Die Lebens- 

 Chancen der Israeliten gegenuber den christ- 

 lichen Confessionen : biostatische Studien 

 (Vierteljahrsschrift fur die praktische Heil- 

 kunde, Band ii, p. 19). (Translated for 

 Scientific Side-Lights.) 



1987. LONGEVITY A RESULT OF 

 ADVANCED CIVILIZATION Science 

 Lengthens Human Life. Systems of phi- 

 losophy and forms of religion find a meas- 

 ure of their influence on humanity in census 

 returns. ... As Dr. Jarvis, in his re- 

 port to the Massachusetts Board of Health, 

 has stated, at the epoch of the Reforma- 

 tion, " the average longevity in Geneva was 

 21.21 years; between 1814 and 1833 it was 

 40.68; as large a number of persons now 

 live to seventy years as lived to forty three 

 hundred years ago. In 1693 the British 

 Government borrowed money by selling an- 

 nuities on lives from infancy upward, on the 

 basis of the average longevity. The contract 

 was profitable. Ninety-seven years later 

 another tontine, or scale of annuities, on the 

 basis of the same expectation of life as in 

 the previous century, was issued. These 

 latter annuitants, however, lived so much 

 longer than their predecessors that it proved 

 to be a very costly loan for the government. 

 It was found that while ten thousand of 

 each sex in the first tontine died under the 

 age of twenty-eight, only five thousand seven 

 hundred, and seventy- two males and six 

 thousand four hundred and sixteen females 

 in the second tontine died at the same age 

 one hundred years later." DRAPER Conflict 

 between Religion and Science. (A., 1875.) 



1 988. LOSS, APPARENT, OF NITRO- 

 GEN Bacteria Restore It to the Soil In the 

 ordinary processes of vegetation there is a 

 gradual draining of the soil and a passing 

 of nitrogen into the sea ; the products of de- 

 composition pass from the soil by this drain- 

 age, and are " lost " as far as the soil is 

 concerned. Many of the methods of sewage- 

 disposal are in reality depriving the land 

 of the return of nitrogen which is its neces- 

 sity. Again, nitrogen is freed in explosions 

 of gunpowder, nitroglycerin, and dynamite, 

 for whatever purpose they are used. Hence 

 the great putrefactive " loss " of nitrogen, 



