557 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Problem 

 Progress 



taining the fluid. Moreover, this successful 

 preventive practise had been in some meas- 

 ure correctly interpreted as due to the ex- 

 clusion of the atmosphere, but wrongly 

 credited to the exclusion of the oxygen of 

 the air. It was not until the beginning of 

 the present century that authorities modi- 

 fied their view and declared in favor of 

 yeast-cells as the agents in the production 

 of fermentation. NEWMAN Bacteria, ch. 4, 

 p. 111. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



2744. PRODUCT OF EVOLUTION 

 MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE PROCESS 



Love the Final and Supreme Result. But, 

 after all, the miracle of evolution is not the 

 process, but the product. Beside the won- 

 der of the result, the problem of the process 

 is a mere curiosity of science. For what 

 is the product? It is not mountain and val- 

 ley, sky and sea, flower and star, this glori- 

 ous and beautiful world in which man's 

 body finds its home. It is not the godlike 

 gift of mind nor the ordered cosmos where 

 it finds so noble an exercise for its illimit- 

 able powers. It is that which of all other 

 things in the universe commends itself, with 

 increasing sureness as time goes on, to the 

 reason and to the heart of humanity love. 

 Love is the final result of evolution. This 

 is what stands out in Nature as the supreme 

 creation. DRUMMOND Ascent of Man, ch. 10, 

 p. 335. (J. P., 1900.) 



2745. PRODUCT OF SLIGHT FORCE 

 BY VAST PERIOD Power of " Patient Con- 

 tinuance " (Rom, ii, 7j -The Silent Activi- 

 ties. There is no fact which the geological 

 student is more constantly called upon to 

 bear in mind than that of the potency of 

 seemingly insignificant causes which con- 

 tinue in constant operation through long 

 periods of time. Indeed, these small and 

 almost unnoticed agencies at work upon the 

 earth's crust are often found, in the long 

 run, to produce far grander effects than 

 those of which the action is much more 

 striking and obvious. It is to the silent 

 and imperceptible action of atmospheric 

 moisture and frost that the disintegration 

 of the solid rock-masses must be mainly 

 ascribed; and the noisy cataract and ocean 

 billow produce effects which are quite in- 

 significant compared with those which must 

 be ascribed to the slight and almost un- 

 noticed forces. Great masses of limestone 

 are built up of the remains of microscopic 

 organisms, while the larger and higher life 

 forms contribute but little to the great work 

 cf rock-building. JUDD Volcanoes, ch. 10, p. 

 302. (A., 1899.) 



2746. PROFICIENCY INCREASED BY 

 REST We notice after exercising our mus- 

 cles or our brain in a new way that we can 

 do so no longer at that time; but after a 

 day or two of rest, when we resume the 

 discipline, our increase in skill not seldom 

 surprises us. I have often noticed this in 

 learning a tune; and it has led a German 



author to say that we learn to swim during 

 the winter and to skate during the sum- 

 mer. JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 4, p. 

 110. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



2747. PROGENY OF LOWER ANIMALS 

 MULTITUDINOUS Love Then Impossible 

 A T o Ethical Result Attained. The humbler 

 denizens of the world produce offspring, 

 not by units or tens, but by thousands and 

 millions; and with populations so vast, ma- 

 ternal protection is not required to sustain 

 the existence of the species. It was probably 

 on the whole a better arrangement to pro- 

 duce a million and let them take their 

 chance, than to produce one and take special 

 trouble with it. It was easier, moreover, 

 a thousand times easier, for Nature to make 

 a million young than one mother. But the 

 ethical effect, if one may use such a term 

 here, of this early arrangement was nil. 

 All this saving of motherly trouble meant 

 for a long space in Nature complete absence 

 of maternal training. With children of this 

 sort motherhood had no chance. There was 

 no time to love, no opportunity to love, and 

 no object to love. It was a period of phys- 

 ical installations; and of psychical instal- 

 lations only as establishing the first stages 

 of the maternal instinct the prenatal care 

 of the egg. This is a necessary beginning, 

 but it is imperfect; it arrests itself at the 

 critical point, where care can react upon the 

 mother. DRUMMOND Ascent of Man, ch. 8, 

 p. 271. (J. P., 1900.) 



2748. PROGRESS BY DISREGARD OF 

 PLEASURE AND PAIN Pleasure and pain 

 are undoubtedly powerful as spur and 

 bridle and bit in the struggle for existence. 

 But whatever biology and certain doctrines 

 of political economy may see fit to hold on 

 this subject, psychology cannot find that the 

 facts testify to this side of life as being by 

 life any means all-powerful. Indeed, all hu- 

 man life develops largely by relegating the 

 immediate effects of our activity, as respects 

 the quantities of pleasure or pain evoked, 

 more and more into the background. LADI> 

 Psychology, ch. 10, p. 197. (S., 1899.) 



2749. PROGRESS BY INTERCOURSE 

 AND INTERCHANGE A Prophet without 

 Honor in His Own Country. Humanity 

 would probably not have progressed very far 

 from its original state if the separate tribes 

 and peoples had not mutually exchanged 

 their small steps of progress, and constantly 

 enriched their scanty possessions in culture 

 by borrowing from others. Just the rigid- 

 ness of the people's soul that timidly refuses 

 every venture, everything untried, justifies 

 the assumption that every nation has de- 

 rived a great percentage of its endowments 

 and opinions at second hand; [and this is. 

 further evident from the fact that] natural- 

 ly the example of an entire neighboring tribe 

 exercises a stronger and more convincing 

 effect than the most living demonstration 

 from a member of one's own society, whose 



