599 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



ivagery 

 :ience 



gers, I feel that their place in Nature is 

 to animate the barren wastes of the sea. 

 How, when at sea, the presence of a single 

 gull changes the whole aspect of Nature! 

 The great expanse of water, which before 

 was oppressive in its dreary lifelessness, is 

 transformed by the white-winged gulls into 

 a scene of rare beauty. Every voyager, be 

 he naturalist or not, admires their grace 

 of form and motion. They seem born of the 

 waves, and as much a part of the ocean 

 as the foamy whitecaps themselves. CHAP- 

 MAN Bird-Life, ch. 7, p. 88. (A., 1900.) 



2963. SCIENCE ACCEPTS POPULAR 

 BELIEF Rhea'a Stomach an Ancient Remedy 

 Now Valued for Pepsin. More than two 

 centuries ago (very ancient times for South 

 America} the gauchos were accustomed to 

 take the lining of the rhea's stomach, dried 

 and powdered, for ailments caused by im- 

 paired digestion, and the remedy is popular 

 still. Science has gone over to them, and 

 the ostrich-hunter now makes a double 

 profit, one from the feathers, and the other 

 from the dried stomachs which he supplies 

 to the chemists of Buenos Ayres. Yet he 

 was formerly told that to take the stomach 

 of the ostrich to improve his digestion was 

 as wild an idea as it would be to swallow 

 birds' feathers in order to fly. HUDSON Nat- 

 uralist in La Plata, ch. 4, p. 79. (C. & H., 

 1895.) 



2964. SCIENCE ADDS GLORY TO 

 THE VISION OF REDEMPTION I do 



not enter at all into the positive evidence 

 for the truth of the Christian revelation, 

 my single aim at present being to dispose 

 of one of the objections which is conceived 

 to stand in the way of it. Let me suppose, 

 then, that this is done to the satisfac- 

 tion of a philosophical inquirer, and that 

 the evidence is sustained; and that the 

 same mind that is familiarized to all the 

 sublimities of natural science, and has been 

 in the habit of contemplating God in as- 

 sociation with all the magnificence which 

 is around him, shall be brought to submit 

 its thoughts to the captivity of the doctrine 

 of Christ. Oh! with what veneration, and 

 gratitude, and wonder should he look on 

 the descent of .Him into this lower world 

 who made all these things, and without 

 whom was not anything made that was 

 made. What a grandeur does it throw over 

 every step in the redemption of a fallen 

 world, to think of its being done by Him 

 who unrobed him of the glories of so wide 

 a monarchy, and came to this humblest of 

 its provinces, in the disguise of a servant, 

 and took upon him the form of our degraded 

 species, and let himself down to sorrows, 

 and to sufferings, and to death, for us! In 

 this love of an expiring Savior to those 

 for whom in agony he poured out his soul 

 there is a height, and a depth, and a length, 

 and a breadth, more than I can comprehend; 

 and let me never from this moment neglect 

 so great a salvation, or lose my hold of an 



atonement, made sure by Him who cried 

 that it was finished, and brought in an ever- 

 lasting righteousness. CHALMERS Astro- 

 nomical Discourses, disc. 3, p. 85. (R. Ct., 

 1848.) 



2965. SCIENCE ADVANCED BY 

 ARABS IN SPITE OF HINDRANCES 



Alchemy, magic, and mystic fancies, de- 

 prived by scholastic phra_seology of all 

 poetic charm, corrupted here, as elsewhere, 

 in the Middle Ages, the true results of in- 

 quiry; but still the Arabs have enlarged 

 the views of Nature, and given origin to 

 many new elements of knowledge, by their 

 indefatigable and independent labors, while, 

 by means of careful translations into their 

 own tongue, they have appropriated to 

 themselves the fruits of the labors of earlier 

 cultivated generations. Attention has been 

 justly drawn to the great difference exist- 

 ing in the relations of civilization between 

 immigrating Germanic and Arabian races. 

 The former became cultivated after their 

 immigration; the latter brought with them 

 from their native country not only their 

 religion, but a highly polished language, 

 and the graceful blossoms of a poetry which 

 has not been wholly devoid of influence on 

 the Provencals and Minnesingers. HUM- 

 BOLDT Cosmos, vol. ii, pt. ii, p. 212. (H., 

 1897.) 



2966. SCIENCE, A HIGHER, NOT 

 TO BE MERGED IN A LOWER Chemis- 

 try Mechanics Physiology Terms of the 

 Lower Misrepresent the Higher. " Any at- 

 tempt to merge the distinctive characteris- 

 tic of a higher science in a lower of 

 chemical ehanges in mechanical; of physi- 

 ological in chemical; above all, of mental 

 changes in physiological is a neglect of the 

 radical assumption of all science, because 

 it is an attempt to deduce representations 

 or rather misrepresentations of one kind 

 of phenomenon from a conception of an- 

 other kind which does not contain it, and 

 must have it implicitly and illicitly smug- 

 gled in before it can be extracted out of it. 

 Hence, instead of increasing our means of 

 representing the universe to ourselves with- 

 out the detailed examination of particulars, 

 such a procedure leads to misconstructions 

 of fact on the basis of an imported theory, 

 and generally ends in forcibly perverting 

 the least known science to the type of the 

 better known." DRUMMOND Natural Law 

 in the Spiritual World, int., p. 19. (H. Al.) 



2967. SCIENCE A LIVING REALITY 



To Know the Actual Earth and the 

 Starry Heavens Carlyle's Lament. Think 

 of true science as a living reality; as a 

 faithful expounder of all that is worth 

 knowing and that can be known; as an ex- 

 isting power, ever anxious in its unwearied 

 march for the good and welfare of man- 

 kind; and best of all, perhaps, as an ever- 

 willing instructor of all who will come to 

 be taught. . . . Let us bend the educa- 

 tional twig in its early growth that our ef- 



