565 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Psychology 

 Purity 



Psychological Problems. The case of physi- 

 ological psychology is the simplest one. 

 There was never a teacher who would have 

 taught otherwise, or would have changed his 

 educational efforts, if the physiological sub- 

 stratum of the mental life had been the 

 liver or the kidneys instead of the brain. 

 . . . It is a caricature of the facts if you 

 tell the teacher that he can learn anything 

 new about the mental life if he knows by 

 heart the accompanying brain processes; and 

 if the teacher, in the hope of understanding 

 the mental life of children better, studies 

 the ganglion-cells under the microscope, he 

 could substitute just as well the reading of 

 Egyptian hieroglyphics. MUNSTERBERG Psy- 

 chology and Life, p. 129. (H. M. & Co., 

 1899.) 



2787. PSYCHOLOGY MUST BEGIN 

 WITH FACTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS Ex- 

 perience As Compared with Reflection. If 

 it be sensation, feeling, idea, and will which 

 led in the first instance to the assumption 

 of mind, the only natural method of psy- 

 chological investigation will be that which 

 begins with just these facts. First of all, 

 we must understand their empirical nature, 

 and then go on to reflect upon them. For 

 it is experience and reflection which consti- 

 tute each and every science. Experience 

 comes first ; it gives us our bricks ; reflection 

 is the mortar which holds the bricks to- 

 gether. We cannot build without both. 

 Reflection apart from experience, and ex- 

 perience without reflection, are alike power- 

 less. It is therefore essential for scientific 

 progress that the sphere of experience be en- 

 larged, and new instruments of reflection 

 from time to time invented. WUNDT Psy- 

 chology, lect. 1, p. 8. (Son. & Co., 1896.) 



2788. PSYCHOLOGY, NOTHING NEW 

 IN ESSENTIALS OF There is no " new psy- 

 chology " worthy of the name. There is 

 nothing but the old psychology which began 

 in Locke's time, plus a little physiology of 

 the brain and senses and theory of evolu- 

 tion, and a few refinements of introspective 

 detail. JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 1, p. 

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



2 7 89. PUGNACITY U S EF U L The 



Fighting Impulse Needed to Conquer Diffi- 

 culties. Pugnacity need not be thought of 

 merely in the form of physical combative- 

 ness. It can be taken in the sense of a gen- 

 eral unwillingness to be beaten by any kind 

 of difficulty. It is what makes us feel 

 "' stumped " and challenged by arduous 

 achievements, and is essential to a spirited 

 and enterprising character. We have of late 

 been hearing much of the philosophy of ten- 

 derness in education ; " interest " must be 

 assiduously awakened in everything, diffi- 

 culties must be smoothed away. Soft peda- 

 gogics have taken the place of the old steep 

 and rocky path to learning. But from this 

 lukewarm air the bracing oxygen of effort 

 is left out. It is nonsense to suppose that 



every step in education can be interesting. 

 The fighting impulse must often be appealed 

 to. Make the pupil feel ashamed of being 

 scared at fractions, of being " downed " by 

 the law of falling bodies; rouse his pugnac- 

 ity and pride, and he will rush at the diffi- 

 cult places with a sort of inner wrath at 

 himself that is one of his best moral 

 faculties. A victory scored under such con- 

 ditions becomes a turning-point and crisis 

 of his character. It represents the high- 

 water mark of his powers, and serves there- 

 after as an ideal pattern for his self- 

 imitation. JAMES Talks to Teachers, ch. 7, 

 p. 54. (H. H. & Co., 1900.) 



2 7 9O . PUNCTUALITY ESSENTIAL 

 IN SCIENTIFIC OBSERVATIONS Eclipse 

 To Be Recommenced Story of Cassini. It 

 is necessary to catch them [eclipses] on the 

 wing, so to say, and not to imitate the too 

 presumptuous marquis of the time of Louis 

 XV. when conducting to the observatory a 

 party of fashionable ladies, and who, hav- 

 ing been a little delayed by the petty cares 

 of the toilet, arrived half a minute after the 

 end of the eclipse. As the ladies refused to 

 alight from their coach, a little displeased 

 by the unreasonableness of coquetry, " Let 

 us all go in, ladies,'' cried the little dandy, 

 with the most haughty assurance ; " M. de 

 Cassini is one of my best friends, and he 

 will have real pleasure in recommencing the 

 eclipse for us!" This anecdote has been re- 

 told in our century on the authority of 

 Arago. FLAMMARION Popular Astronomy, 

 bk. ii, ch. 9, p. 194. (A.) 



2791. PURIFICATION OF THE AT- 

 MOSPHERE Deadly Gas Made to Sustain 

 Life. Consider, then, all the fires in the 

 world and all the animals in the world con- 

 tinually pouring their carbonic acid into 

 the atmosphere. Would it not be fair to 

 conclude that our air must become more 

 and more contaminated, and unfit to sup- 

 port either combustion or life? This seems 

 inevitable, but it would be a conclusion 

 founded upon half-knowledge, and therefore 

 wrong. A provision exists for continually 

 purifying the atmosphere of its excess of 

 carbonic acid. By the leaves of plants this 

 gas is absorbed, and within the leaves it is 

 decomposed by the solar rays. The carbon 

 is stored up in the tree, while the pure oxy- 

 gen is restored to the atmosphere. Carbonic 

 acid, in fact, is to a great extent the nutri- 

 ment of plants; and inasmuch as animals, 

 in the long run, derive their food from the 

 vegetable world, this very gas, which at 

 first sight might be regarded as a deadly 

 constituent of the atmosphere, is the main 

 sustainer both of vegetable and animal life. 

 TYNDALL Heat a Mode of Motion, lect. 3, 

 p. 55. (A., 1900.) 



2792. PURITY, APPARENT, NOT 

 ALWAYS REAL Bacteria Float in Transit 

 through the Air Often Where Least Ex- 

 pected. There is no numerical standard for 



