Opposites 

 Organisms 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



500 



Merge into Each Other. There is no ap- 

 parent similarity between a straight line 

 and a circle. The one is a curve; the other 

 is defined as without curvature. The one 

 encloses a space; the other will not enclose 

 a space, tho produced forever. The one 

 is finite; the other may be infinite. Yet, 

 opposite as the two are in their characters, 

 they may be connected together by a series 

 of lines no one of which differs from the 

 adjacent ones in any appreciable degree. 

 Thus, if a cone be cut by a plane at right 

 angles to its axis we get a circle. If, instead 

 of being perfectly at right angles, the plane 

 subtends with the axis an angle of 89 59', 

 we have an ellipse which no human eye, even 

 when aided by an accurate pair of com- 

 passes, can distinguish from a circle. De- 

 creasing the angle minute by minute, this 

 closed curve becomes perceptibly eccentric, 

 then manifestly so, and by and by acquires 

 so immensely elongated a form as to bear 

 no recognizable resemblance to a circle. By 

 continuing this process the ellipse changes 

 insensibly into a parabola. On still further 

 diminishing the angle the parabola becomes 

 an hyperbola. And finally, if the cone be 

 made gradually more obtuse, the hyperbola 

 passes into a straight line as the angle of 

 the cone approaches 180. Here, then, we 

 have five different species of line circle, el- 

 lipse, parabola, hyperbola, and straight line 

 each having its peculiar properties and its 

 separate equation, and the first and last 

 of which are quite opposite in Nature, con- 

 nected together as members of one series, all 

 producible by a single process of insensible 

 modification. SPENCER Biology, pt. iii, ch. 

 3, p. 433. (A., 1900.) 



2459. OPPOSITES UNITED The Lu- 



miniferous Ether Has Gaseous Tenuity, 

 with Properties of a Solid. The notion of 

 this medium must not be considered as a 

 vague or fanciful conception on the part 

 of scientific men. Of its reality most of 

 them are as convinced as they are of the 

 existence of the sun and moon. The lu- 

 miniferous ether has definite mechanical 

 properties. It is almost infinitely more at- 

 tenuated than any known gas, but its prop- 

 erties are those of a solid rather than of a 

 gas. It resembles jelly rather than air. 

 This was not the first conception of the 

 ether, but it is that forced upon us by a 

 more complete knowledge of its phenomena. 

 A body thus constituted may have its boun- 

 daries; but, altho the ether may not be co- 

 extensive with space, it must at all events 

 extend as far as the most distant visible 

 stars. In fact, it is the vehicle of their 

 light, and without it they could not be 

 seen. This all-pervading substance takes up 

 their molecular tremors, and conveys them 

 with inconceivable rapidity to our organs 

 of vision. It is the transported shiver of 

 bodies countless millions of miles distant, 

 which translates itself in human conscious- 

 ness into the splendor of the firmament at 



night. TYNDALL Fragments of Science, vol. 

 i, ch. 1, p. 4. (A., 1897.) 



2460. OPPOSITION, DELIGHT IN 



Mental as Distinguished from Physical Com- 

 bativeness Perception of Dangers and Dif- 

 ficulties. There are individuals who never 

 manifest the least degree of physical com- 

 bativeness, who yet show a remarkable love 

 of opposition in all their psychical relations 

 with others. That objections will be raised 

 by such persons to any plan that may be 

 proposed we can always feel sure, tho we 

 may not have the remotest idea as to what 

 the objection may be in each particular case. 

 Persons in whom this tendency exists in a 

 less prominent degree are apt to see objec- 

 tions and difficulties first, altho their good 

 sense may subsequently lead them to con- 

 sider these as of less account or to be out- 

 weighed by the advantages of the scheme. 

 Such was the case with the late Sir Robert 

 Peel. On the other hand, those who are 

 spoken of as of sanguine temperament are 

 apt to lose sight of the intervening difficul- 

 ties, in the pleasurable anticipation of the 

 result. CARPENTER Mental Physiology, ch. 

 7, p. 317. (A., 1900.) 



2461. OPPRESSION HATEFUL So- 



ence Despises Tyrants' Petty Grandeur So- 

 licitude for Humanity. I have said that no 

 arts of importance have been lost, but per- 

 haps this assertion is rather too general. 

 There is one which may be considered an 

 exception: I allude to the ancient art pos- 

 sessed by the few of enslaving and brutal- 

 izing the many, the art by which a single 

 individual, invested with the magic of king- 

 ly power, was enabled to compel thousands 

 of his subjects, through the course of a long 

 reign, like beasts of burden, to haul ma- 

 terials and heap up huge piles of stone, 

 which might transmit to posterity the fact 

 that a worm like himself had lived and 

 died. The pyramids of Egypt, venerable as 

 they are with the age of accumulated cen- 

 turies, are melancholy monuments of hu- 

 man degradation, of human vanity and cruel- 

 ty. HENRY Improvement of the Mechanical 

 Arts, Scientific Writings, vol. i, p. 321. 

 (Sm. Inst., 1886.) 



2462. ORDER AMID SEEMING ACCI- 

 DENTS Periodicity of Sun-spots. Schwabe 

 found that in the course of about eleven 

 years the solar spots pass through a com- 

 plete cycle of changes. They become gradu- 

 ally more and more numerous up to a cer- 

 tain maximum, and then as gradually di- 

 minish. At length the sun's face becomes 

 not only clear of spots, but a certain well- 

 marked darkening around the border of his 

 disk disappears altogether for a brief season. 

 At this time the sun presents a perfectly 

 uniform disk. Then gradually the spots re- 

 turn, become more and more numerous, and 

 so the cycle of changes is run through again. 



The astronomers who have watched the 

 sun from the Kew Observatory have found 



