507 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Originators 

 Painting 



2495. OWNERSHIP, SENSE OF, ES- 

 SENTIAL TO MENTAL HEALTH The 



sense of ownership begins in the second 

 year of life. Among the first words which 

 an infant learns ,to utter are the words 

 " my " and " mine," and woe to the parents 

 of twins who fail to provide their gifts 

 in duplicate. The depth and primitiveness 

 of this instinct would seem to cast a sort of 

 psychological discredit in advance upon all 

 radical forms of communistic utopia. Pri- 

 vate proprietorship cannot be practically 

 abolished until human nature is changed. 

 It seems essential to mental health that the 

 individual should have something beyond 

 the bare clothes on his back to which he 

 can assert exclusive possession, and which 

 he may defend adversely against the world. 

 JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 7, p. 55. 

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



2496. PAIN DUE TO DISCORD OR 



EXCESS Conflict and Violence Distressing. 

 Conflict and violence are two principal 

 modes of painful stimulation, and explain 

 a very considerable number of our pains. 

 In most, if not in all, of the painful sen- 

 sations of three of the senses namely, 

 touch, hearing, and sight the pain is either 

 discord or excess. The smarting acuteness 

 of a blow on the skin, of a railway whistle 

 close to the ear, of a glare of light, are 

 due to the mere degree or excess of the 

 stimulus. In hearing and in sight there 

 are, in addition, the pains of discord. In 

 the two remaining senses, taste and smell, 

 we cannot make the same affirmation. We 

 do not know what is the mode of nervous 

 action in a bitter taste, as quinin or soot, 

 and we cannot say that the transition from 

 sweet to bitter is a transition from moderate 

 stimulus to an excessive one. It may be 

 that the power of the nerve is exhausted 

 under a different kind of influence from 

 mere violence of stimulation ; but no certain 

 knowledge exists on the subject. The same 

 remarks apply to smell. BAIN Mind and 

 Body, ch. 4,. p. 18. (Hum., 1880.) 



2497. PAIN LATENT IN JOY Suffer- 

 ing and Sacrifice Conditions of the Highest 

 Good The Mother's Devotion. Do we not 

 see that our natural feelings mislead us 

 when they pronounce pleasant things to be 

 the good ones, and the painful ones evil? 

 So far from this being the case, things that 

 we call painful, that are painful in our 

 ordinary state, are essential conditions of 

 our highest good. To us there could not 

 be love without them. We could never have 

 felt the joy, never have had even the idea, 

 of love, if sacrifice had been impossible to 

 us. In our truest and intense happiness 

 that which is otherwise felt as pain is pres- 

 ent. Pain, we may say, is latent in our 

 highest state. It lies hidden and unfelt in 

 the form of devoted sacrifice ; but it is there, 

 and it would make itself felt as pain if the 

 love which finds joy in bearing it were ab- 

 sent. Take, for example, the offices rendered 



with joy by a mother to her babe; let 

 the love be wanting, and what remains? 

 Not mere indifference, but vexation, labor, 

 annoyance. A gladly accepted pain is in the 

 mother's love; it is in all love that does not 

 contradict the name. To take away from 

 us the possibility of that which we feel as 

 pain were to take its best part from life, 

 to render it almost surely altogether 

 worthless. The possibility of love is given 

 to us in our power of sacrifice, and loving 

 brings the power into immediate action. 

 HINTON The Mystery of Pain, p. 21. (Hum., 

 1893.) 



2498. PAINLESSNESS OF VIOLENT 

 DEATH Livingstone and the Lion. In all 

 cases in which persons have escaped after 

 being seized by a lion or tiger they declare 

 that they suffered little or no pain, physical 

 or mental. A well-known instance is that 

 of Livingstone, who thus describes his sen- 

 sations when seized by a lion : " Starting 

 and looking half round, I saw the lion just 

 in the act of springing on me. I was upon 

 a little height; he caught my shoulder as 

 he sprang, and we both came to the ground 

 below together. Growling horribly close to 

 my ear, he shook me as a terrier dog does 

 a rat. The shock produced a stupor similar 

 to that which seems to be felt by a mouse 

 after the first shake of the cat. It causes 

 a sort of dreaminess, in which there was 

 no sense of pain or feeling of terror, tho 

 I was quite conscious of all that was hap- 

 pening. It was like what patients partially 

 under the influence of chloroform describe, 

 who see all the operation, but feel not the 

 knife. This singular condition was not the 

 result of any mental process. The shake 

 annihilated fear, and allowed no sense of 

 horror in looking round at the beast." 

 WALLACE Darwinism, ch. 2, p. 25. (Hum.) 



2499. PAINTING, EGYPTIAN, CON- 

 VENTIONAL FETTERS OF Greek Pictures 

 Excel in Freedom and Naturalness. In col- 

 or-drawing or painting the Egyptian wall- 

 paintings show a style half-way between the 

 lowest and the highest. Here the scenes of 

 old Egyptian life are caught at their char- 

 acteristic moments, the shoemaker is seen 

 drawing his thread, the fowler throwing at 

 the ducks, the lords and ladies feasting, 

 and the flute-players and tumblers perform- 

 ing before them. Yet with all their clever 

 expressiveness, the Egyptian paintings have 

 not quite left behind the savage stage of 

 art. In fact, they are still picture-writings 

 rather than pictures, repeating rows of fig- 

 ures with heads, legs, and arms drawn to 

 pattern, and colored in childish daubs of 

 color hair all black,, skin all red-brown, 

 clothing white, and so on. The change from 

 these to the Greek paintings is surprising; 

 now we have no more rows of man-patterns, 

 but grouped studies of real men. The best 

 works of the Greek painters are only known 

 to moderns by the admiring descriptions of 

 the ancients, but more ordinary specimens 



