423 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



!an 

 an' 8 



dome is completed by the structure of man. 

 The development of the animal kingdom is 

 the development of intelligence chained to 

 matter; the animals in which the nervous 

 system has reached the greatest perfection 

 are the vertebrates, and in man that part 

 of the nervous system which is the organ 

 of intelligence reaches, as I have sought to 

 show, the highest development possible to 

 a vertebrate animal, while intelligence has 

 grown to reflection and volition. On these 

 grounds, I believe, not that man is the high- 

 est possible intelligence, but that the human 

 body is the highest form of human life pos- 

 sible, subject to the conditions of matter 

 on the surface of the globe, and that the 

 structure completes the design of the ani- 

 mal kingdom. CLELAND, quoted by DRUM- 

 MONO in Ascent of Man, ch. 3, p. 113. (J. 

 P., 1900.) 



2071. MAN TRANSFORMS THE 

 EARTH Makes New Environment. The des- 

 tinies of all other living things are more 

 and more dependent upon the will of man. 

 It rests with him to determine, to a great 

 degree, what plants and animals shall re- 

 main upon the earth and what shall be 

 swept from its surface. By unconsciously 

 imitating the selective processes of Nature 

 he long ago wrought many wild species into 

 forms subservient to his needs. He has cre- 

 ated new varieties of fruit and flower and 

 cereal grass, and has reared new breeds of 

 animals to aid him in the work of civiliza- 

 tion, until at length he is beginning to ac- 

 quire a mastery over mechanical and molec- 

 ular and chemical forces which is doubtless 

 destined in the future to achieve marvelous 

 results whereof to-day we little dream. 

 Natural selection itself will by and by 

 occupy a subordinate place in comparison 

 with selection by man, whose appearance on 

 the earth is thus seen more clearly than 

 ever to have opened an entirely new chap- 

 ter in the mysterious history of creation. 

 FISKE Destiny of Man, ch. 3, p. 33. (H. M. 

 & Co., 1900.) 



2072. MAN UNITED BY BODILY 

 CONSTITUTION WITH ALL ANIMAL 

 AND VEGETABLE LIFE "O/ the Dust of 

 the Ground " (Gen. ii, 7). Man is included 

 in the unity of Nature, in the first place, 

 as regards the composition of his body. Out 

 of the ordinary elements of the material 

 world is that body made, and into those 

 elements it is resolved again. With all its 

 beauties of form and of expression, with all 

 its marvels of structure and of function, 

 there is nothing whatever in it except some 

 few of the elementary substances which are 

 common in the atmosphere and the soil. 

 The three commonest gases, oxygen, hydro- 

 gen, and nitrogen, with carbon and with 

 sulfur, are the foundation - stones. In 

 slightly different proportions these elements 

 constitute the primordial combination of 

 matter which is the abode of life. In the 

 finished structure there appear, besides, 



lime, potash, and a little iron, sodium, and 

 phosphorus. These are the constituents of 

 the human body of these in different com- 

 binations [it consists] and, so far as we 

 know, of nothing else. The same general 

 composition, with here and there an ingredi- 

 ent less or more, prevails throughout the 

 whole animal and vegetable world, and its 

 elements are the commonest in the inor- 

 ganic kingdom also. ARGYLL Unity of Na- 

 ture, ch. 2, p. 28. (Burt.) 



2073. MAN WITHOUT AGRICUL- 

 TURE Shell-mound Builders Spirituous 

 Liquors Unknown. If the absence of cereal 

 remains justifies us, as it appears to do, 

 in concluding that they [the shell-mound 

 builders] had no knowledge of agriculture, 

 they must certainly have sometimes suf- 

 fered from periods of great scarcity, indica- 

 tions of which may, perhaps, be seen in the 

 bones of the fox, wolf, and other carnivora, 

 which would hardly have been eaten from 

 choice; on the other hand, they were blessed 

 in the ignorance of spirituous liquors, and 

 saved thereby from what is at present the 

 greatest scourge of Northern Europe. AVE- 

 BURY Prehistoric Times, ch. 1, p. 231. (A., 

 1900.) 



2074. MAN'S CONSCIOUSNESS OF 

 POWER Similar Results in Nature Referred 

 to Supreme Conscious Power. We are con- 

 scious of the exertion of a power when we 

 either produce or resist motion; whenever, 

 therefore, we see bodies in motion we infer 

 that only by a like exertion of power could 

 that motion have originated; so when the 

 retardation of motion gives rise to heat, or 

 heat (in ceasing to manifest itself as such) 

 gives rise to expansive force, we perceive 

 that it is only the manifestation that is 

 changed, the fundamental power remaining 

 the same. And as we are thus led by the 

 " correlation " doctrine to consider the vari- 

 ous agencies of Nature as the expression of 

 a conscious will, we find the highest science 

 completely according with the highest re- 

 ligion, in directing us to recognize the om- 

 nipresent and constantly sustaining energy 

 of a personal Deity in every phenomenon of 

 the universe around us, the pantheistic and 

 anthropomorphic conceptions of his charac- 

 ter being thus brought into harmony when 

 we view " Nature " as the embodiment of the 

 divine volition, the " forces of Nature " as 

 so many diversified modes of its manifesta- 

 tion, and the " laws of Nature "as nothing 

 but man's expressions of the uniformities 

 which his limited observation can discern 

 in its phenomena. CARPENTER Nature and 

 Man, lect. 5, p. 183. (A., 1889.) 



2075. MAN'S EAGERNESS TO KNOW 



Paralysis of Investigation for a Thousand 

 Years Modern Scientific Revival. Our 

 present mastery over the laws and phenom- 

 ena of light has its origin in the desire of 

 man to know. We have seen the ancients 

 busy with this problem, but, like a child 

 who uses his arms aimlessly, for want of the 



