479 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Myths 

 Nation 



235O. MYTHS, ORIGIN OF Imagina- 

 tion among Barbarians Supposed Remains 

 of Giants. We know how strong our own 

 desire is to account for everything. This de- 

 sire is as strong among barbarians, and ac- 

 cordingly they devise such explanations as 

 satisfy their minds. But they are apt to go 

 a stage further, and their explanations 

 turn into the form of stories with names of 

 places and persons, thus becoming full-made 

 myths. Educated men do not now consider 

 it honest to make fictitious history in this 

 way, but people of untrained mind, in what 

 is called the myth-making stage, which has 

 lasted on from the savage period and has not 

 quite disappeared among ourselves, have no 

 such scruples about converting their guesses 

 at what may have happened into the most 

 lifelike stories of what they say did happen. 

 Thus, when comparative anatomy was hard- 

 ly known, .the finding of huge fossil bones in 

 the ground led people to think they were the 

 remains of huge beasts and enormous men, 

 or giants, who formerly lived on the earth. 

 Modern science decides that they were right 

 as to the beasts, which were ancient species 

 of elephant, rhinoceros, etc., but wrong as to 

 the giants, none of the great bones really 

 belonging to any creature like man. But 

 while the belief lasted that they were bones 

 of giants, men's imagination worked in ma- 

 king stories about these giants and their 

 terrific doings, stories which are told still in 

 all quarters of the globe as tho they were 

 traditions of real events. TYLOB Anthropol- 

 ogy, ch. 15, p. 388. (A., 1899.) 



2351. 



Observer Held To 



Be Ruler of the Winds jEolus Made a God. 

 In the Lipari Islands there has prevailed 

 a belief, from the very earliest period of 

 history, that the feeble eruptions of Strom- 

 boli are in some way dependent upon the 

 condition of the atmosphere. These islands 

 were known to the ancients as the jEolian 

 Isles, from the fact that they were once 

 ruled over by a king of the name of JSolus. 

 It seems not improbable that ^E'olus was 

 gifted with natural powers of observation 

 and reasoning far in advance of those of his 

 contemporaries. A careful study of the 

 vapor-cloud which covers Stromboli would 

 certainly afford him information concerning 

 the hygrometric condition of the atmos- 

 phere; the form and position assumed by 

 this vapor-cloud would be a no less perfect 

 index of the direction and force of the wind ; 

 and, if the popular belief be well founded, 

 the frequence and violence of the explosions 

 taking place from the crater would indicate 

 the barometric pressure. From these data 

 an acute observer would be able to issue 

 " storm- warnings " and weather prognostics 

 of considerable value. In the vulgar mind, 

 the idea of the prediction of natural events 

 is closely bound up with that of their pro- 

 duction; and the shrewd weather-prophet 

 of Lipari was after his death raised to the 

 rank of a god, and invested with the sov- 



ereignty of the winds. JUDD Volcanoes, ch. 

 2, p. 34. (A., 1899.) 



2352. NAME, IMPORTANCE OF 



Science and Morality Unite Redemption of 

 the Drunkard. The hackneyed example of 

 moral deliberation is the case of an habitual 

 drunkard under temptation. He has made a 

 resolve to reform, but he is now solicited 

 again by the bottle. His moral triumph or 

 failure literally consists in his finding the 

 right name for the case. If he says that it 

 is a case of not wasting good liquor already 

 poured out, or a case of not being churlish 

 and unsociable when in the midst of friends, 

 or a case of learning something at last about 

 a brand of whisky which he never met be- 

 fore, or a case of celebrating a public holi- 

 day, or a case of stimulating himself to a 

 more energetic resolve in favor of absti- 

 nence than any he has ever yet made, then 

 he is lost. His choice of the wrong name 

 seals his doom. But if, in spite of all the 

 plausible good names with which his thirsty 

 fancy so copiously furnishes him, he un- 

 waveringly clings to the truer bad name, 

 and apperceives the case as that of " being a, 

 drunkard, being a drunkard, being a drunk- 

 ard," his feet are planted on the road to 

 salvation. He saves himself by thinking 

 rightly. JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 15, 

 p. 187. (H. H. &Co., 1900.) 



2353. NARROWNESS OF SPECIAL- 

 IST Specialty Disqualifies for Comprehensive 

 Reasonings. Science has in the course of 

 its growth become divided into a great num- 

 ber of small specialties, each pursued ar- 

 dently by its own votaries. This is benefi- 

 cial in one respect; for much more can be 

 gained by men digging downward, each on 

 his own vein of valuable ore, than by all 

 merely scraping the surface. But the spe- 

 cialist, as he descends fathom after fathom 

 into his own mine, however rich and rare the 

 gems and metals he may discover, becomes 

 more and more removed from the ordinary 

 \\ays of men, and more and more regardless 

 of the products of other veins as valuable as 

 his own. The specialist, however profound 

 he may become in the knowledge of his own 

 limited subject, is on that very account less 

 fitted to guide his fellow men in the pursuit 

 of general truth. When he ventures to the 

 boundaries between his own and other do- 

 mains of truth, or when he conceives the 

 idea that his own little mine is the sole de- 

 posit of all that requires to be known, he 

 sometimes makes grave mistakes ; and these 

 pass current for a time as the dicta of high 

 scientific authority. DAWSON Facts and 

 Fancies in Modern Science, lect. 1, p. 17. 



(A. B. P. S.) 



2354. NATION GREATER THAN 



COUNTRY Power and Influence of the Danes. 

 Denmark occupies a larger space in the 

 history than on the map of Europe; the na- 

 tion is greater than the country. With the 

 growth of physical power in surrounding 

 populations, she has lost much of her infill- 



