441 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Mermaid 

 Meteorites 



salts either in fusion, in solution, or in a 

 vaporized condition from the deep-seated 

 masses within the earth, causing them to 

 crystallize upon the sides of the fissures, and 

 thus form those metallic lodes and veins 

 which are within reach of our mining opera- 

 tions. JUDD Volcanoes, ch. 5, p. 149. (A., 

 1899.) 



2157. METAPHOR CONVEYS ES- 

 SENTIAL TRUTH All Language Metaphor- 

 icalAdaptation Best Expressed in Terms 

 of Design. For what purpose are metaphors 

 used ? Is it not as a means of making plain 

 to our own understandings the principle of 

 things, and of tracing amid the varieties of 

 phenomena the essential unities of Nature? 

 In this sense all language is full of meta- 

 phor, being, indeed, composed of little else. 

 . . . Accordingly, when naturalists, de- 

 scribing plants or animals, use the language 

 of contrivance to describe the adaptations 

 of function, they must use it because they 

 feel it to be a help in the understanding of 

 the facts. When, for example, we are told 

 that flowers are constructed in a peculiar 

 manner " in order that " they may catch 

 the proboscides of moths or the backs of bees, 

 and that this adaptation, again, is necessary 

 " in order that " these insects should carry 

 the fertilizing pollen from flower to flower, 

 nothing more may be immediately intended 

 by the writer than that all this elaborate 

 mechanism does as a matter of fact attain 

 this end, and that it may be fitly described 

 " as if " it had been arranged " in order 

 that " these things might happen. But this 

 use of language is none the less an acknowl- 

 edgment of the truth that the facts of Na- 

 ture are best brought home and explained 

 to the understanding, and to the intelligence 

 of man, by stating them in terms of the rela- 

 tion which they obviously bear to the famil- 

 iar operations of our own mind and spirit. 

 ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 8, p. 174. 

 (Burt.) 



2158. METAPHOR, LANGUAGE OF, 

 A NECESSITY OF SCIENCE Natural Selec- 

 tion Elective Affinity. Others have ob- 

 jected that the term " selection " implies 

 conscious choice in the animals which be- 

 come modified; and it has even been urged 

 that, as plants have no volition, natural 

 selection is not applicable to them! In the 

 literal sense of the word, no doubt, " natural 

 selection " is a false term ; but who ever ob- 

 jected to chemists speaking of the " elective 

 affinities " of the various elements ? and 

 yet an acid cannot strictly be said to 

 " elect " the base with which it in preference 

 combines. It has been said that I speak of 

 " natural selection " as an active power or 

 deity; but who objects to an author speak- 

 ing of the " attraction of gravity " as 

 " ruling " the movements of the planets ? 

 Every one knows what is meant and is im- 

 plied by such metaphorical expressions, and 

 they are almost necessary for brevity. So, 

 again, it is difficult to avoid personifying 

 the word "Nature"; but I mean by "Na- 



ture " only the aggregate action and prod- 

 uct of many natural laws, and by " laws " 

 the sequence of events as ascertained by us. 

 DARWIN Origin of Species, ch. 4, p. 74. 

 (Burt.) 



2159. METAPHYSICS, BAD OR 

 GOOD ? Positivism Also Metaphysical. 

 Scientific men are accustomed to reckon 

 such laws as the first law of motion among 

 the surest possessions of pure intellect, and 

 the faculty by which they are conceived 

 among the noblest proofs of its energy and 

 power. Positivism, on the contrary, regards 

 such laws as mere " artifices " of thought, 

 and the power by which they are conceived 

 not as a strength, but as an " infirmity " of 

 mind. I do not deny that the process by 

 which these abstractions are attained is a 

 metaphysical process that is to say, they 

 are purely mental conceptions. But the 

 process which denies " reality " to these con- 

 ceptions is also purely a metaphysical proc- 

 ess, with this only difference, that it is bad 

 metaphysics instead of good. ARGYLL Reign 

 of Law, ch. 2, p. 67. (Burt.) 



2160. METEORITES, CELESTIAL 

 SPACES FULL OF Millions Fall on the 

 Earth. We may now remark that these 

 meteors play a much more important part 

 than we were formerly disposed to believe. 

 A single night, a single hour, a single min- 

 ute, does not pass without the fall of a 

 star. The terrestrial globe sails in the 

 midst of a space full of diverse corpuscles 

 circulating in all directions some in ellip- 

 tical streams of various inclinations, others 

 even in the plane of the ecliptic, as we see 

 by the zodiacal light which extends from the 

 sun to beyond the terrestrial orbit. By 

 enumerating the number of shooting stars 

 which are seen above a given horizon during 

 the different nights of the year, calculating 

 the number of similar horizons which would 

 comprise the whole surface of the globe, and 

 taking into account the directions of the 

 shooting stars, the monthly variations, etc., 

 an eminent American astronomer, Mr. 

 Simon Newcomb, has demonstrated that no 

 fewer than one hundred and forty-six thou- 

 sand millions (146,000,000,000) of shooting 

 stars fall per annum on the earth. FLAM- 

 MARION Popular Astronomy, bk. v, ch. 4, p. 

 535. (A.) 



2161. METEORITES, THEIR FALL 

 RECORDED IN ANCIENT TIMES The 

 Greek natural philosophers, who were but 

 little disposed to pursue observations, but 

 evinced inexhaustible fertility of imagina- 

 tion in giving the most various interpreta- 

 tion of half-perceived facts, have, however, 

 left some hypotheses regarding shooting 

 stars and meteoric stones which strikingly 

 accord with the views now almost univer- 

 sally admitted of the cosmical process of 

 these phenomena. " Falling stars," says 

 Plutarch, in his life of Lysander, " are, ac- 

 cording to the opinion of some physicists, 

 not eruptions of the ethereal fire extin- 



