595 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Rocks 

 Sagacity 



the sun. It was effected at Florence, in 

 presence of Sir Humphry Davy, on Tuesday, 

 the 27th of March, 1814: "To-day we made 

 the grand experiment of burning the dia- 

 mond, and certainly the phenomena present- 

 ed were extremely beautiful and interesting. 

 A glass globe containing about 22 cubical 

 inches was exhausted of air, and filled with 

 pure oxygen. The diamond was supported 

 in the center of this globe. The Duke's 

 burning-glass was the instrument used to 

 apply heat to the diamond. It consists of 

 two double convex lenses, distant from each 

 other about 3% feet; the large lens is about 

 14 or 15 inches in diameter, the smaller one 

 about 3 inches in diameter. By means of 

 the second lens the focus is very much 

 reduced, and the heat, when the sun shines 

 brightly, rendered very intense. The dia- 

 mond was placed in the focus and anxiously 

 watched. On a sudden Sir H. Davy observed 

 the diamond to burn visibly, and when re- 

 moved from the focus it was found to be in 

 a state of active and rapid combustion." 

 TYNDALL Lectures on Light, lect. 5, p. 172. 

 (A., 1898.) 



2941. SACRIFICE OF LESS FOR 

 GREATER Of Present for Future, Personal 

 for Social, Material for Spiritual. Men have 

 arranged the various selves which they 

 may seek in an hierarchical scale according 

 to their worth. A certain amount of bodily 

 selfishness is required as a basis for all 

 the other selves. But too much sensuality 

 is despised, or at best condoned on account 

 of the other qualities of the individual. The 

 wider material selves are regarded as higher 

 than the immediate body. He is esteemed 

 a poor creature who is unable to forego a 

 little meat and drink and warmth and sleep 

 for the sake of getting on in the world. The 

 social self as a whole, again, ranks higher 

 than the material self as a whole. We must 

 care more for our honor, our friends, our 

 human ties, than for a sound skin or wealth. 

 And the spiritual self is so supremely pre- 

 cious that, rather than lose it, a man ought 

 to be willing to give up friends, and good 

 fame, and property, and life itself. 



In each kind of self, material, social, and 

 spiritual, men distinguish between the im- 

 mediate and actual, and the remote and po- 

 tential, between the narrower and the wider 

 view, to the detriment of the former and 

 advantage of the latter. One must forego 

 a present bodily enjoyment for the sake of 

 one's general health; one must abandon the 

 dollar in the hand for the sake of the 

 hundred dollars to come; one must make 

 an enemy of his present interlocutor if there- 

 by one makes friends of a more valued cir- 

 cle ; one must go without learning, and grace, 

 and wit, the better to compass one's soul's 

 salvation. JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 10, 

 p. 314. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



2942. SACRIFICE OF LOWER OR- 

 GANISM FOR HIGHER Inoculation of Ani- 

 mals to Protect Man. It may be necessary 



to observe the action of supposed patho- 

 genic organisms upon animals. This is ob- 

 viously a last resource, and any abuse of 

 such a process is strictly limited by law. 

 As a matter of fact, an immense amount 

 of bacteriological investigation can be car- 

 ried on without inoculating animals; but, 

 strictly speaking, as regards many of the 

 pathogenic bacteria this test is the most 

 reliable of all. Nor would any responsible 

 bacteriologist be justified in certifying a 

 water as healthy for consumption by a large 

 community if he was in doubt as to the 

 disease-producing action of certain contained 

 organisms. NEWMAN Bacteria, ch. 2, p. 46. 

 (G. P. P., 1899.) 



2943. SACRIFICES TO MALEVO- 

 LENCE Terror the Inspiration to Worship of 

 Serpents. The worship of serpents has been 

 attributed to conceptions of a very abstract 

 character with the circle, for example, into 

 which they coil themselves considered as an 

 emblem of eternity. But this is a concep- 

 tion far too transcendental and far-fetched 

 to account either for the origin of this 

 worship or for its wide extension in the 

 world. Serpents are not the only natural 

 objects which present circular forms. .. * * 

 They have been chosen, beyond any reason- 

 able doubt, because of the horror and terror 

 they inspire. For this, above all other crea- 

 tures, they are prominent in Nature. For 

 their deceptive coloring, for their insidious 

 approach, for their deadly virus, they have 

 been taken as the type of spiritual poison 

 in the Jewish narrative of the Fall. The 

 power of inflicting almost immediate death, 

 which is possessed by the most venomous 

 snakes, and that not by violence, but by 

 the infliction of a wound which in itself 

 may be hardly visible, is a power which is 

 indeed full of mystery even to the most cul- 

 tivated scientific mind, and may well have 

 inspired among men in early ages a desire 

 to pacify the powers of evil. The moment 

 this becomes the great aim and end of 

 worship a principle is established which is 

 fertile in the development of every foul im- 

 agination. Whenever it is the absorbing mo- 

 tive and desire of men to do that which 

 may most gratify or pacify malevolence, 

 then it ceases to be at all wonderful that 

 men should be driven by their religion to 

 sacrifices the most horrid, and to practises 

 the most unnatural. ARGYLL Unity of Na- 

 ture, ch. 12, p. 290. (Burt.) 



2944. SAGACITY, ANIMAL Mule 

 Drinking from Cactus. The mule, more 

 cautious and cunning, adopts another meth- 

 od of allaying his thirst [on the plains of 

 South America]. There is a globular and 

 articulated plant, the Melocactus, which en- 

 closes under its prickly integument an aque- 

 ous pulp. After carefully striking away the 

 prickles with his forefeet the mule cautious- 

 ly ventures to apply his lips to imbibe the 

 cooling thistle juice. But the draft from 

 this living vegetable spring is not always 



