Science 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



603 



he can tell, angels from paradise may have 

 sped to every planet their delegated way, 

 and sung from each azure canopy a joyful 

 annunciation, and said, " Peace be to this 

 residence, and good-will to all its families, 

 and glory to him in the highest, who, from 

 the eminency of his throne, has issued an 

 act of grace so magnificent as to carry the 

 tidings of life and of acceptance to the un- 

 numbered orbs of a sinful creation." CHAL- 

 MERS Astronomical Discourses, p. 58. (R. 

 Ct., 1848.) 



2975. SCIENCE CANNOT PROVE 



IMMORTALITY Types of Sound and Flame. 

 As yet we know of no fact, which can be 

 established by scientific observation, which 

 would show that the finer and complex 

 forms of vital motion could exist otherwise 

 than in the dense material of organic life; 

 that it can propagate itself as the sound- 

 movement of a string can leave its originally 

 narrow and fixed home and diffuse itself in 

 the air, keeping all the time its pitch and 

 the most delicate shade of its color-tint; 

 and that, when it meets another string at- 

 tuned to it, starts this again or excites a 

 flame ready to sing to the same tone. The 

 flame, even, which, of all processes in inani- 

 mate Nature, is the closest type of life, may 

 become extinct, but the heat which it pro- 

 duces continues to exist indestructible, im- 

 perishable, as an invisible motion, now agi- 

 tating the molecules of ponderable matter, 

 and then radiating into boundless space as 

 the vibration of an ether. Even there it re- 

 tains the characteristic peculiarities of its 

 origin, and it reveals its history to the 

 inquirer who questions it by the spectro- 

 scope. United afresh, these rays may ignite 

 a new flame, and thus, as it were, acquire 

 a new bodily existence. HELMHOLTZ Popu- 

 lar Lectures, lect. 4, p. 194. (L. G. & Co., 

 1898.) 



2976. SCIENCE CONFRONTED WITH 



MYSTERY Transition from Phenomena of 

 Physics to Phenomena of Thought across a 

 Gulf. When we endeavor to pass by a 

 similar process from the phenomena of phys- 

 ics to those of thought we meet a problem 

 which transcends any conceivable expansion 

 of the powers which we now possess.. We 

 may think over the subject again and again, 

 but it eludes all intellectual presentation. 

 We stand at length face to face with the 

 incomprehensible. The territory of physics 

 is wide, but it has its limits from which 

 we look with vacant gaze into the region 

 beyond. Let us follow matter to its utmost 

 bounds, let us claim it in all its forms 

 even in the muscles, blood, and brain of man 

 himself as ours to experiment with and 

 to speculate upon. Casting the term " vital 

 force " from our vocabulary, let us reduce, 

 if we can, the visible phenomena of life to 

 mechanical attractions and repulsions. Hav- 

 ing thus exhausted physics and reached its 

 very rim, a mighty mystery still looms be- 

 yond us. We have, in fact, made no step 



towards its solution. TYNDALL Fragments 

 of Science, vol. ii, ch. 15, p. 391. (A., 

 1900.) 



2977. SCIENCE, CONQUESTS OF 



Arabs Wot Fitted to Work Out Highest Re- 

 sults. As Wilhelm von Humboldt observes: 

 " What would be the condition of our civili- 

 zation at the present day if the Arabs had 

 remained, as they long did, the sole possess- 

 ors of scientific knowledge, and had spread 

 themselves permanently over the west? A 

 less favorable result would probably have su- 

 pervened. . . . It is to the same causes 

 which procured for the Romans a dominion 

 over the world the Roman spirit and char- 

 acter and not to external and merely ad- 

 ventitious chances, that we owe the influence 

 exercised by the Romans on our civil institu- 

 tions, our laws, languages, and culture. It 

 was owing to this beneficial influence and to 

 the intimate alliance of races that we were 

 rendered susceptible to the influence of the 

 Greek mind and language, while the Arabs 

 directed their consideration principally only 

 to those scientific results of Greek investi- 

 gation which referred to the description of 

 Nature, and to physical, astronomical, and 

 purely mathematical science." The Arabs, 

 by carefully preserving the purity of their 

 native tongue, and the delicacy of their 

 figurative modes of expression, were enabled 

 to impart the charm of poetic coloring to 

 the expression of feeling and of the noble 

 axioms of wisdom; but, to judge from 

 what they were under the Abbassides, had 

 they built on the same foundation with 

 which we find them familiar it is scarcely 

 probable that they could have produced 

 those works of exalted poetic and creative 

 art which, fused together in one harmonious 

 accord, are the glorious fruits of the mature 

 season of our European culture. HUMBOLDT 

 Cosmos, vol. ii, pt. ii, p. 227. (H., 1897.) 



2978. SCIENCE DEMANDS A LIFE 

 BEYOND THAT OF THE SENSES Pic- 

 torial Power Needed to Deal with Under- 

 lying Principles. The life of the experi- 

 mental philosopher is twofold. He lives, in 

 his vocation, a life of the senses, using his 

 hands, eyes, and ears in his experiments; 

 but such a question as that now before us 

 [the ultimate nature of light] carries him 

 beyond the margin of the senses. He cannot 

 consider, much less answer, the question, 

 " What is light ? " without transporting him- 

 self to a world which underlies the sensible 

 one, and out of which spring all optical phe- 

 nomena. To realize this subsensible world, 

 if I may use the term, the mind must pos- 

 sess a certain pictorial power. TYNDALL 

 Lectures on Light, lect. 2, p. 43. (A., 1898.) 



2979. SCIENCE DEPENDENT ON 



ENVIRONMENT Indeed, the experience ac- 

 quired by its [the telescope of Lord Rosse] 

 use plainly shows that atmospheric rather 

 than mechanical difficulties impede a still 

 further increase of telescopic power. Its 



