Selfishness 

 Sense 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



618 



admitted, however, that much that common- 

 ly passes for spiritual self-seeking in this 

 narrow sense is only material and social self- 

 seeking beyond the grave. In the Moham- 

 medan desire for paradise and the Christian 

 aspiration not to be damned in hell, the 

 materiality of the goods sought is undis- 

 guised. In the more positive and refined 

 view of heaven many of its goods, the fel- 

 lowship of the saints and of our dead ones, 

 and the presence of God, are but social goods 

 of the most exalted kind. It is only the 

 search of the redeemed inward nature, the 

 spotlessness from sin, whether here or here- 

 after, that can count as spiritual self-seek- 

 ing pure and undefiled. JAMES Psychology, 

 vol. i, ch. 10, p. 309. (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



3058. SELFISHNESS ON THE SEA 



Shipwreck for Insurance Life Less Es- 

 teemed than Property. There is no doctrine 

 in physics more certainly true than this doc- 

 trine in politics that every practise which 

 the authority of society recognizes or sup- 

 ports has its own train of consequences 

 which, for evil or for good, can be modified 

 or changed in an infinite variety of degrees 

 according as that sanction is given or with- 

 held. . . . Thus, for example, there seems 

 good reason to believe there is a direct re- 

 lation between the amount of life and prop- 

 erty annually sacrificed by shipwreck, and 

 the legislation which recognizes and sanc- 

 tions insurance to the full amount of the 

 value of ship and cargo. The cause of this 

 is obvious. Care for life is less eager and 

 less wakeful than care for property. This 

 is true even when men are -dealing equally 

 with their own property and with their 

 own lives. It is still more true when they 

 are dealing not only with property which 

 is their own, but with lives which belong to 

 others. The inevitable effect of such insur- 

 ance is therefore to relax the motives of 

 self-interest, which are the strongest incite- 

 ments to precaution. ARGYLL Reign of Law, 

 ch. 7, p. 217. (Burt.) 



3059. SELF-SACRIFICE OF A 

 FLOWER Laying Down Life for Offspring 

 Struggle for the Life of Others. Watch this 

 flower at work for a little, and behold a 

 miracle. Instead of struggling for life, it 

 lays down its life. After clothing itself 

 with a beauty which is itself the minister 

 of unselfishness, it droops, it wastes, it lays 

 down its life. The tree still lives ; the other 

 leaves are fresh and green; but this life 

 within a life is dead. And why? Because 

 within this death is life. Search among 

 the withered petals, and there, in a cradle 

 of cunning workmanship, are a hidden prog- 

 eny of clustering seeds the gift to the 

 future which this dying mother has brought 

 into the world at the cost of leaving it. The 

 food she might have lived upon is given to 

 her children, stored round each tiny embryo 

 with lavish care, so that when they waken 

 into the world the first helplessness of their 

 hunger is met. All the arrangements in 



plant life which concern the flower, the 

 fruit, and the seed are the creations of the 

 struggle for the life of others. DRUMMOND 

 Ascent of Man, p. 227. (J. P., 1900.) 



3060. SENSATION REQUIRES TIME 

 FOR TRANSMISSION Whale Not Instantly 

 Aware of Wound. People in general im- 

 agine, when they think at all about the 

 matter, that an impression upon the nerves 

 a blow, for example, or the prick of a pin 

 is felt at the moment it is inflicted. But 

 this is not the case. The seat of sensation 

 being the brain, to it the intelligence of any 

 impression made upon the nerves has to be 

 transmitted before this impression can be- 

 come manifest as consciousness. The trans- 

 mission, moreover, requires time, and the 

 consequence is that a wound inflicted on a 

 portion of the body distant from the brain 

 is more tardily appreciated than one in- 

 flicted adjacent to the brain. By an ex- 

 tremely ingenious experimental arrange- 

 ment, Helmholtz has determined the velocity 

 of this nervous transmission, and finds it to 

 be about eighty feet a second, or less than 

 one-thirteenth of the velocity of sound in 

 air. If, therefore, a whale forty feet long 

 were wounded in the tail, it would not be 

 conscious of the injury till half a second 

 after the wound had been inflicted. TYN- 

 DALL Fragments of Science, vol. i, ch. 21, p. 

 439. (A.) 



3061. SENSATIONS ACUTE OR 

 MASSIVE Touch, Light, Sound Acuteness 

 vs. Diffusion of Sensation. There is an in- 

 teresting correspondence between the physic- 

 al and the mental, in regard to a marked 

 distinction among the sensations, in all the 

 senses, between the acute and the volumi- 

 nous or massive. A sharp prick in the 

 finger, or a hot cinder, yields acute sensa- 

 tions; the contact of the clothing of the 

 entire body, or a warm bath, yields volumi- 

 nous or massive sensations. Now it is ob- 

 servable that an acute sensation is due to an 

 intense stimulus on a small surface ; a mass- 

 ive sensation, to a gentler stimulus over an 

 extended surface. The contrast is noticeable 

 in every one of the senses. A gas flame 

 gives an acute feeling, the diffused sunlight 

 gives a massive feeling. A high note upon 

 the flageolet is acute; a deep bass note on 

 the violoncello or the organ is massive. The 

 sea, the thunder, the shouting of a multi- 

 tude are voluminous or massive from repe- 

 tition over a wide area. Taste is acute, 

 digestive feeling is massive. Thus thor- 

 oughly does the mere manner of external 

 incidence determine one of the most notable 

 distinctions among our states of feeling. 

 BAIN Mind and Body, ch. 3, p. 11. (Hum., 

 1880.) 



3062. SENSATIONS INCREASED BY 

 ATTENTION Unnatural Sensitiveness in 

 Hysteria. It is no less certain, however, 

 that the intensity of sensations is greatly 

 affected by the degree in which the recipi- 

 ent mind is directed towards them ; and this 



