So spiral ion 

 esults 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



584 



of painful exhaustion at such elevations; 

 but in the condor the respiratory process 

 seems to be performed with equal facility 

 under a pressure of 30 or of 13 inches. This 

 bird probably raises itself voluntarily to a 

 greater height from the surface of our earth 

 than any other living creature. I use the 

 expression " voluntarily/' since small insects 

 and silicious-shelled infusoria are frequently 

 borne to greater elevations by a rising cur- 

 rent of air. It is probable that the condor 

 flies even higher than the above calculations 

 would appear to show. HUMBOLDT Views of 

 Nature, p. 238. (Bell, 1896.) 



2885. RESPIRATION IS COMBUS- 

 TION -Food Supplies Fuel Three Classes of 

 Food Necessary. Respiration is a true ex- 

 ample of combustion. The seat of the com- 

 bustion is the lungs. The substance burnt 

 is sugar. The products are carbonic dioxid 

 gas and water. The materials of animal 

 food may be divided into three classes : non- 

 nitrogenized substances, such as starch and 

 sugar; nitrogenized substances, like lean 

 meat and eggs, and lastly, fatty substances, 

 like butter. ... No article of food which 

 does not contain all three of these classes 

 of substances can alone support life for any 

 length of time. A man would starve to 

 death on starch alone, on meat alone, or on 

 butter alone. The relative proportion, how- 

 ever, in which these three classes of sub- 

 stances are required by man depends on his 

 outward circumstances, such as the climate, 

 his physical activity, his occupation, or his 

 peculiar temperament, and to the right bal- 

 ance of his food he is guided by experi- 

 ence. COOKE Religion and Chemistry, ch. 4, 

 p. 104. (S., 1894.) 



2886. RESPONSE TO HUMAN FEEL- 

 INGS SOUGHT IN NATURE Every im- 

 aginative mind looks for reflections of its 

 own deepest feelings in the world about it. 

 The lonely, embittered heart, craving for 

 sympathy, which he cannot meet with in his 

 fellow man, finds traces of it in the sighing 

 of the trees or the moaning of the sad sea 

 wave. Our poet laureate, in his great ele- 

 gy, has abundantly illustrated this impulse 

 of the imagination to reflect its own emo- 

 tional coloring on to inanimate things: for 

 example, in the lines: 



The wild unrest that lives in woe 

 Would dote and pore on yonder cloud 

 That rises upward always higher, 



And onward drags a laboring breast, 

 And topples round the dreary west, 

 A looming bastion fringed with fire. 



[TENNYSON In Memomam, st. 15, 1. 15.] 



SULLY Illusions, ch. 9, p. 226. (A., 1897.) 



2887. RESPONSIBILITY DES- 

 TROYED OR TRANSFERRED Anything 

 which destroys responsibility or transfers 

 it cannot be other than injurious in its 

 moral tendency and useless in itself. 

 DRUMMOND Natural Law in the Spiritual 

 World, essay 10, p. 325. (H. Al.) 



2888. RESPONSIBILITY FOR MEN- 

 TAL ILLUSIONS Coleridge s Unbelief in 

 Ghosts Resolution Can Hold the Mind to 

 Realities. If we only choose to exert our- 

 selves we can always keep our illusions 

 in a nascent or imperfectly developed stage. 

 This applies not only to those half-illusions 

 into which we voluntarily fall, but also to 

 the more irresistible passive illusions, and 

 those arising from an over-excited imagi- 

 nation. Even persons subject to hallucina- 

 tions, like Nicolai of Berlin, learn to recog- 

 nize the unreal character of these phan- 

 tasms. On this point the following bit of 

 autobiography from the pen of Coleridge 

 throws an interesting light. "A lady" (he 

 writes ) " once asked me if I believed in 

 ghosts and apparitions. I answered with 

 truth and simplicity, ' No, madam, I have 

 seen far too many myself.' " However ir- 

 resistible our sense-illusions may be, so long 

 as we are under the sway of particular im- 

 pressions or mental images, we can, when 

 resolved to do so, undeceive ourselves by 

 carefully attending to the actual state of 

 things about us. SULLY Illusions, ch. 6, p. 

 125. (A., 1897.) 



2889. RESPONSIBILITY OF THE 

 DRUNKARD Abstinence a Possibility and a 

 Duty Ruin Is Criminal Insanity. What- 

 ever allowances society may be ready to 

 make for individual cases such, for in- 

 stance, as that of Hartley Coleridge, who 

 was the victim of a strong hereditary pre- 

 disposition, accompanied by a constitutional 

 weakness of will it recognizes as a fixed 

 conviction, and consistently acts upon that 

 conviction, that the incipient drunkard has a 

 power over himself ; that he can not only ab- 

 stain if he chooses, but that he can choose 

 to abstain because he knows that he ought 

 to do so; and that when, by voluntarily giv- 

 ing way to his propensity, he brings himself 

 into a condition in which he is no more 

 responsible for his actions than a lunatic, 

 he is not thereby exempted from the pen- 

 alty that may attach to them, but must 

 be held responsible for having knowingly 

 and deliberately brought himself into the 

 condition of irresponsibility. CARPENTER 

 Mental Physiology, pref., p. 42. (A., 1900.) 



2890. REST DUE TO A BALANCE 

 OF FORCES Duration and Indestructibility 

 of Matter. All that we know of matter is in- 

 separably connected with the forces which it 

 exerts, or which it is capable of exerting, or 

 which are being exerted in it. The force of 

 gravitation seems to be all-pervading, and to 

 be either an inherent power or property in 

 every kind, or almost every kind of mat- 

 ter, or else to be the result of some kind 

 of energy which is universal and unquench- 

 able. All bodies, however passive and inert 

 they may seem to be under certain condi- 

 tions, yet indicate by their very existence 

 the power of those molecular forces to which 

 the cohesion of their atoms is due. The 

 fact is now familiar to us that the most 



