Season 

 ecoiistruction 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



574 



dition supposed that is to say, the condi- 

 tion of false or erroneous data supplied 

 to the reasoning faculty is not an accident 

 or a contingency, but a necessary and in- 

 evitable result. ARGYLL Unity of Nature, 

 ch. 10, p. 260. (Burt.) 



2831. REASONING, APPARENT IN- 

 STANCE OF, AMONG BEES Inference 

 Sagaciously Drawn. Huber gives a case of 

 apparent exercise of reason, or power of in- 

 ference from a particular case to other and 

 general cases. A piece of comb fell down 

 and was fixed in its new position by wax. 

 The bees then strengthened the attachments 

 of all the other combs, clearly because they 

 inferred that they, too, might be in danger 

 of falling. This is a very remarkable case, 

 and leads Huber to exclaim, " I admit that 

 I was unable to avoid a feeling of aston- 

 ishment in the presence of a fact from which 

 the purest reason seemed to shine out." 

 ROMANES Animal Intelligence, ch. 4, p. 185. 

 (A., 1899.) 



2832. 



Intelligence 



Shown in Repair of Damages. A closely 

 similar and therefore corroborative case [cf. 

 2831] of an even more remarkable kind is 

 thus narrated in Watson's " Reasoning Pow- 

 er of Animals," p. 448 : 



" Dr. Brown, in his book on the bee, gives 

 another illustration of the reasoning power 

 of bees, observed by a friend of his. A 

 center comb in a hive, being overburdened 

 with honey, had parted from its fastenings 

 and was pressing against another comb, so 

 as to prevent the passage of the bees be- 

 tween them. This accident excited great 

 bustle in the colony, and as soon as their 

 proceedings could be observed it was found 

 that they had constructed two horizontal 

 beams between the two combs, and had re- 

 moved enough of the honey and wax above 

 them to admit the passage of a bee, while 

 the detached comb had been secured by 

 another beam and fastened to the window 

 with spare wax. But what was most re- 

 markable was that, when the comb was thus 

 fixed, they removed the horizontal beams 

 first constructed as being of no further 

 use. The whole occupation took about ten 

 days." ROMANES Animal Intelligence, ch. 

 4, p. 185. (A., 1899.) 



2833. REASONING VS. EMPIRICAL 

 JUDGMENT Cloth and Dyestuff. Suppose 

 I say, when offered a piece of cloth, " I 

 won't buy that ; it looks as if it would fade," 

 meaning merely that something about it 

 suggests the idea of fading to my mind; 

 my judgment, tho possibly correct, is not 

 reasoned, but purely empirical; but if I 

 can say that into the color there enters a 

 certain dye which I know to be chemically 

 unstable, and that therefore the color will 

 fade, my judgment is reasoned. The notion 

 of the dye, which is one of the parts of the 

 cloth, is the connecting link between the 



latter and the notion of fading. JAMES Psy- 

 chology, vol. ii, ch. 22, p. 340. (H. II . & 

 Co., 1899.) 



2834. RECITATION, VERBAL, 

 VALUE OF Reaction of Mind upon Impres- 

 sions. The older pedagogic method of learn- 

 ing things by rote, and reciting them par- 

 rot-like in the schoolroom, rested on the 

 truth that a thing merely read or heard, 

 and never verbally reproduced, contracts the 

 weakest possible adhesion in the mind. 

 Verbal recitation or reproduction is thus a 

 highly important kind of reactive behavior 

 on our impressions; and it is to be feared 

 that, in the reaction against the old parrot 

 recitations as the beginning and end of in- 

 struction, the extreme value of verbal reci- 

 tation as an element of complete training 

 may nowadays be too much forgotten. 

 JAMES Talks* to Teachers, ch. 5, p. 34. (H. 

 H. & Co., 1900.) 



2835. RECOGNITION, A TRIUMPH 



OF Uranus Often Seen Before Herschel Rec- 

 ognized It as a Planet. So soon as astron- 

 omers had recognized the nature of the path 

 of Uranus, so as to be able to predict the 

 motions of the planet, they could also trace 

 back its course, so as to find where it had 

 been at any given time before its discovery. 

 Now, when this had been done, it was found 

 that Uranus had in reality been often ob- 

 served before no less than nineteen times, 

 in fact. 



It had been observed by the eminent astron- 

 omers Flamsteed, Bradley, Mayer, and Le- 

 monnier. Flamsteed had seen it five times, 

 each time recording its place as that of a 

 star of the fifth magnitude. But Lemonnier 

 had actually seen the planet no less than 

 twelve times. Unfortunately, Lemonnier 

 was not an orderly man ; " his astronomical 

 papers," says one who has recently written 

 on the subject, " are said to have been a 

 very picture of chaos"; and M. Bouvard nar- 

 rates that he had " seen one of Lemonnier's 

 observations of this very star written on a 

 paper-bag which had contained hair-pow- 

 der." So narrowly had the planet escaped 

 recognition until its discovery should come 

 to reward the most laborious of all astrono- 

 mers the great Sir W. Herschel. PROCTOR 

 Expanse of Heaven, p. 117. (L. G. & Co., 

 1897.) 



2836. RECOGNITION, MARKS THAT 

 SERVE FOR Varied Colors of Birds. If we 

 consider the habits and life histories of 

 those animals which are more or less grega- 

 rious, comprising a large proportion of the 

 herbivora, some carnivora, and a consider- 

 able number of all orders of birds, we shall 

 see that a means of ready recognition of its 

 own kind, at a distance or during rapid 

 motion, in the dusk of twilight or in partial 

 cover, must be of the greatest advantage 

 and often lead to the preservation of life. 



Among birds, these recognition marks are 

 especially numerous and suggestive. Species 

 which inhabit open districts are usually pro- 



