671 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Sunshine 

 Superstition 



in their effects. This, then, cannot be the 

 sense in which so many minds find it hard 

 to accept the supernatural; nor can it be 

 the sense in which others cling to it as of the 

 very essence of their religious faith. What, 

 then, is that other sense in which the diffi- 

 culty arises? Perhaps we shall best find it 

 by seeking the idea which is competing with 

 it, and by which it has been displaced. It 

 is the natural which has been casting out 

 the supernatural the idea of natural law 

 the universal reign of a fixed order of things. 

 This idea is a product of that immense de- 

 velopment of the physical sciences which 

 is characteristic of our time. We cannot 

 read a periodical, or go into a lecture-room, 

 without hearing it expressed. Sometimes, 

 but rarely, it is stated with accuracy, and 

 with due recognition of the limits within 

 which law can be said to comprehend the 

 phenomena of the world. But generally 

 it is expressed in language vague and hol- 

 low, covering inaccurate conceptions, and 

 confounding under common forms of expres- 

 sion ideas which are essentially distinct. The 

 mere ticketing and orderly assortment of 

 external facts is constantly spoken of as if 

 it were in the nature of explanation, and as 

 if no higher truth in respect to natural phe- 

 nomena were to be attained or desired. 

 ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 1, p. 2. (Burt.) 



-3318. SUPERSTITION ACCOUNTING 

 FOR THE FROZEN MAMMOTH The in- 

 habitants of Siberia seem to be familiar 

 with this animal, which they designate by 

 the name of mammoth, while naturalists 

 call it Elephas primigenius. The circum- 

 stance that they abound in the frozen drift 

 of the great northern plain of Asia, and 

 are occasionally exposed in consequence of 

 the wearing of the large rivers traversing 

 Siberia, has led to the superstition among 

 the Tongouses that the mammoths live un- 

 derground, and die whenever, on coming to 

 the surface, the sunlight falls upon them. 

 AGASSIZ Geological Sketches, ser. i, ch. 7, 

 p. 183. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



3319. SUPERSTITION ASCRIBES 

 INUNDATIONS TO ARRIVAL OF SHIPS 



In Kotzebue's " Voyage " there are ac- 

 counts of islands, both in the Caroline and 

 Marshall Archipelagoes, which have been 

 partly washed away during hurricanes ; and 

 Kadu, the native who was on board one of 

 the Russian vessels, said " he saw the sea 

 at Radack rise to the feet of the coconut- 

 trees; but it was conjured in time. . . . 

 According to a tradition which was commu- 

 nicated to Captain Fitz Roy, it is believed 

 in the Low Archipelago that the arrival 

 of the first ship caused a great inundation 

 which destroyed many lives. DARWIN Coral 

 Reefs, ch. 5, p. 129. (A., 1900.) 



3320. SUPERSTITION AS TO AU- 

 RORA BOREALIS Armies Seen Battling in 

 the Sky. Pliny, the naturalist ("Naturalis 

 Historia," ii, 26, 27, 33, and 57), says: 



" There are seen in the heaven (and nothing 

 is more terrible for trembling mortals) 

 blood-colored flames which afterwards fall 

 upon the earth, as it happened in the 

 third year of the hundred and seventh 

 Olympiad, when King Philip ruled over 

 Greece. . . . It is said that at the time 

 of the wars of the Cimbri, and also often 

 before and since, the clashing of arms and 

 the sound of trumpets were heard in the sky. 

 But in the third consulate of Marius the 

 dwellers in Ameria and Tuderta saw in the 

 heavens two armies rushing one against 

 the other from the east and from the west; 

 that of the west was defeated. The heaven 

 itself caught fire: this is no extraordinary 

 thing, and it has often been seen when the 

 clouds are exposed to great heat." 



In this quotation from Pliny we find for 

 the first time the trace of that popular su- 

 perstition which obtained almost down to 

 our own day, and which attributed the great 

 auroras to armies combating in the sky. 

 ANGOT Aurora Borealis, ch. 1, p. 3. (A., 

 1897.) 



3321. SUPERSTITION AS TO POR- 

 TRAITS Life Shown in Picture Thought to 

 Be Taken Away from Original. The red- 

 skins are not altogether deficient in art, 

 being able to make rude carvings, and to 

 trace equally rude drawings on their wig- 

 wams, robes, etc.; but about portraits they 

 have some curious ideas. They think that 

 an artist acquires some mysterious power 

 over any one whose likeness he may have 

 taken; and on one occcasion, when annoyed 

 by some Indians, Mr. Kane got rid of them 

 at once by threatening to draw any one 

 who remained. Not one ventured to do so. 

 If the likeness is good, so much the worse; 

 it is, they fancy, half alive at the expense 

 of the sitter. So much life, they argue, 

 could only be put in the picture by taking 

 it away from the original. Again they fan- 

 cy that if the picture were injured, by some 

 mysterious connection the original would 

 suffer also. AVEBURY Prehistoric Times, ch. 

 14, p. 504. (A., 1900.) 



3322. SUPERSTITION CLOUDS TRI- 

 UMPH OF SCIENTIST A Trial for Witch- 

 craft. The figurative and poetical myths of 

 the Pythagorean and Platonic pictures of 

 the universe, changeable as the fancy from 

 which they emanated, may still be traced 

 partially reflected in Kepler ; but while they 

 warmed and cheered his often saddened spir- 

 it, they never turned him aside from his 

 earnest course, the goal of which he reached 

 in the memorable night of the 15th of May, 

 1618, twelve years before his death. . . . 

 "On the 8th *of March, 1618, it occurred to 

 Kepler, after many unsuccessful attempts, 

 to compare the squares of the times of revo- 

 lution of the planets with the cubes of the 

 mean distances; but he made an error in 

 his calculations, and rejected this idea. On 

 the 15th of May, 1618, he again reverted to 

 it, and calculated correctly. The third law 



