Perfection 

 eril 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



518 



255O. 



Veteran Hunter 



Foiled by Newly Hatched Bird. On a se- 

 cluded lake in one of the Hebrides I ob- 

 served a dun diver, or female of the red- 

 breasted merganser (Hergus serrator), with 

 her brood of young ducklings. On giving 

 chase in the boat, we soon found that the 

 young, altho not above a fortnight old, had 

 such extraordinary powers of swimming and 

 diving that it was almost impossible to cap- 

 ture them. The distance they went under 

 water, and the unexpected places in which 

 they emerged, baffled all our efforts for a 

 considerable time. At last one of the brood 

 made for the shore, with the object of hi- 

 ding among the grass and heather which 

 fringed the margin of the lake. We pur- 

 sued it as closely as we could, but when the 

 little bird gained the shore our boat was 

 still about twenty yards off. Long drought 

 had left a broad margin of small flat stones 

 and mud between the water and the usual 

 bank. I saw the little bird run up about a 

 couple of yards from the water, and then 

 suddenly disappear. Knowing what was 

 likely to be enacted, I kept my eye fixed on 

 the spot, and when the boat was run upon 

 the beach I proceeded to find and pick up 

 the chick. But on reaching the place of 

 disappearance, no sign of the young mer- 

 ganser was to be seen. The closest scrutiny, 

 with the certain knowledge that it was 

 there, failed to enable me to detect it. Pro- 

 ceeding cautiously forwards, I soon became 

 convinced that I had already overshot the 

 mark; and, on turning round, it was only 

 to see the chick rise like an apparition from 

 the stones, and, dashing past the stranded 

 boat, regain the lake, where, having now 

 recovered its wind, it instantly dived and 

 disappeared. The tactical skill of the whole 

 of this maneuver, and the success with 

 which it was executed, were greeted with 

 loud cheers from the whole party, and our 

 admiration was not diminished when we re- 

 membered that some two weeks before that 

 time the little performer had been coiled up 

 inside the shell of an egg, and that about a 

 month before it was apparently nothing but 

 a mass of albumen and of fatty oils. 

 ARGYLL Unity of Nature, ch. 3, p. 50. 

 (Burt.) 



2551. PERFECTION OF MAN AS MAN 



Liberal vs. Professional Education Bread- 

 and-butter Sciences. Now, the perfection of 

 man as an end, and the perfection of man 

 as a mean or instrument, are not only not 

 the same; they are, in reality, generally op- 

 posed. And as these two perfections are 

 different, so the training requisite for their 

 acquisition is not identical, and has, ac- 

 cordingly, been distinguished by different 

 names. The one is styled liberal, the other 

 professional, education; the branches of 

 knowledge cultivated for these purposes 

 being called, respectively, liberal and profes- 

 sional, or liberal and lucrative, sciences. By 

 the Germans the latter are usually distin- 



guished as the Brodwissenschaften, which 

 we may translate the " Bread-and-butter 

 sciences." A few of the professions, indeed, 

 as requiring a higher development of the 

 higher faculties, and involving, therefore, a 

 greater or less amount of liberal education, 

 have obtained the name of liberal professions. 

 We must, however, recollect that this is only 

 an accidental and a very partial exception. 

 But tho the full and harmonious develop- 

 ment of our faculties be the high and nat- 

 tural destination of all, while the cultiva- 

 tion of any professional dexterity is only 

 a contingency, tho a contingency incumbent 

 upon most, it has, however, happened that 

 the paramount and universal end of man 

 of man absolutely has been often ignorant- 

 ly lost sight of, and the term " useful " ap- 

 propriated exclusively to those acquirements 

 which have a value only to man considered 

 in his relative, lower, and accidental char- 

 acter of an instrument. HAMILTON Meta- 

 physics, lect. 1, p. 4. (G. & L., 1859.) 



2552. PERFECTION OF MAN THE 

 GOAL OF NATURE Evolution Exalts Hu- 

 manity. To pursue unflinchingly the meth- 

 ods of science requires dauntless courage and 

 a faith that nothing can shake. Such cour- 

 age and such loyalty to Nature bring their 

 own reward. For when once the formid- 

 able theory [of natural selection] is really 

 understood, when once its implications are 

 properly unfolded, it is seen to have no 

 such logical consequences as were at first 

 ascribed to it. As with the Copernican as- 

 tronomy, so with the Darwinian biology, we 

 rise to a higher view of the workings of 

 God and of the nature of man than was 

 ever attainable before. So far from de- 

 grading humanity, or putting it on a level 

 with the animal world in general, the Dar- 

 winian theory shows us distinctly for the 

 first time how the creation and the per- 

 fecting of man is the goal toward which 

 Nature's work has all the while been tend- 

 ing. It enlarges tenfold the significance 

 of human life, places it upon even a loftier 

 eminence than poets or prophets have imag- 

 ined, and makes it seem more than ever 

 the chief object of that creative activity 

 which is manifested in the physical uni- 

 verse. FISKE Destiny of Man, ch. 2, p. 24. 

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



2553. PERFECTION OF THE GEO- 

 LOGICAL RECORD Life History of the Trilo- 



bite in Stone. Their [the trilobites'] geo- 

 logical history has been very thoroughly 

 studied; not only are we familiar with all 

 their adult characters, but even their em- 

 bryology is well known to naturalists. It 

 is, indeed, wonderful that the mode of 

 growth of animals Which died out in the 

 Carboniferous period should be better known 

 to us than that of many living types. But 

 it is nevertheless true that their embryonic 

 forms have been found perfectly preserved 

 in the rocks. ... So complete is the 

 sequence that the plate on which their em- 



