System 

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SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



678 



labors the greatest man of his age. The 

 physician became a priest, a physician of 

 the soul, and the position of a canon as- 

 sured to him the calm and tranquil life 

 which he preferred. His uncle was a bishop, 

 and was sometimes astonished that he 

 should " lose his time " working at astrono- 

 my. FLAMMARION Popular Astronomy, bk. 

 iv, ch. 1, p. 343. (A.) 



3353. SYSTEMS MERELY ARTIFI- 

 CIAL MUST PERISH The Linnean System 

 of Botany. The botany of Linnaeus, a pure- 

 ly artificial system, was a splendid contri- 

 bution to human knowledge, and did more 

 in its day to enlarge the view of the vege- 

 table kingdom than all that had gone be- 

 fore. But all artificial systems must pass 

 away. None knew better than the great 

 Swedish naturalist himself that his sys- 

 tem, being artificial, was but provisional. 

 Nature must be read in its own light. And 

 as the botanical field became more luminous 

 the system of Jussieu and De Candolle slow- 

 ly emerged as a native growth, unfolded 

 itself as naturally as the petals of one of 

 its own flowers, and forcing itself upon 

 men's intelligence as the very voice of Na- 

 ture, banished the Linnean system forever. 

 DRUMMOND Natural Law in the Spiritual 

 World, int., p. 18. (H. Al.) 



3354. SYSTEMS OF RELATED COM- 

 ETS A Common Origin in Distant Space. 

 The idea of cometary systems was first sug- 

 gested by Thomas Clausen in 1831. It was 

 developed by the acute inquiries of the late 

 M. Hoek, director of the Utrecht Observa- 

 tory, in 1865 and some following years. He 

 found that in quite a considerable number 

 of cases the paths of two or three comets 

 had a common point of intersection far out 

 in space, indicating with much likelihood a 

 community of origin. This consisted, ac- 

 cording to his surmise, in the disruption of 

 a parent mass during its sweep round the 

 star latest visited. Be this as it may, the 

 fact is undoubted that numerous comets fall 

 into groups, in which similar conditions of 

 motion betray a preexistent physical con- 

 nection. CLERKE History of Astronomy, pt. 

 ii, ch. 11, p. 438. (Bl., 1893.) 



3355. TANGIBLE, THE, HELD TO 

 BE THE REAL Objects Hurt or Help Only 

 by Contact Other Senses Are but Anticipa- 

 tory Touch. Why do we thus so markedly 

 select the tangible to be the real? Our mo- 

 tives are not far to seek. The tangible quali- 

 ties are the least fluctuating. When we get 

 them at all we get them the same. The 

 other qualities fluctuate enormously as our 

 relative position to the object changes. 

 Then, more decisive still, the tactile proper- 

 ties are these most intimately connected 

 with our weal or woe. A dagger hurts us 

 only when in contact with our skin, a poi- 

 son only when we take it into our mouths, 

 and we can only use an object for our ad- 

 vantage when we have it in our muscular 



control. It is as tangibles, then, that things 

 concern us most; and the other senses, so far 

 as their practical use goes, do but warn us 

 of what tangible things to expect. They are 

 but organs of anticipatory touch, as Berkeley 

 has with perfect clearness explained. JAMES 

 Psychology, vol. ii, ch. 21, p. 306. (H. H. 

 & Co., 1899.) 



3356. TASKS, CONTRASTED, FOR 



MAN AND WOMAN Woman's Bias toward 

 the Domestic Life. Among primitive peo- 

 ples, as largely in modern times, " The tasks 

 which demand a powerful development of 

 muscle and bone, and the resulting capacity 

 for intermittent spurts of energy, involving 

 corresponding periods of rest, fall to the 

 man; the care of the children and all 

 the various industries which radiate from 

 the hearth, and which call for an expendi- 

 ture of energy more continuous, but at a 

 lower tension, fall to the woman." [Have- 

 lock Ellis, "Man and Woman," p. 2.] 

 Whether this or any theory of the origin 

 of sex be proved or unproved, the fact re- 

 mains, and is everywhere emphasized in 

 Nature, that a certain constitutional dif- 

 ference exists between male and female, a 

 difference inclining the one to a robuster 

 life, and implanting in the other a certain 

 mysterious bias in the direction of what 

 one can 'only call the womanly disposition.* 

 DRUMMOND Ascent of Man, ch. 7, p. 256. 

 (J. P., 1900.) 



3357. TASKS INCREASED WITH 

 POWER New Problems of Astronomy. The 

 means at the disposal of astronomers have 

 not multiplied faster than the tasks imposed 

 upon them. Looking back to the year 1800, 

 we cannot fail to be astonished at the change. 

 The comparatively simple and serene science 

 of the heavenly bodies known to our pred- 

 ecessors, almost perfect so far as it went, 

 incurious of what lay beyond its grasp, has 

 developed into a body of manifold powers 

 and parts, each with its separate mode and 

 means of growth, full of strong vitality, but 

 animated by a restless and unsatisfied spirit, 

 haunted by the sense of problems unsolved, 

 and tormented by conscious impotence to 

 sound the immensities it perpetually con- 

 fronts. CLERKE History of Astronomy, pt. 

 ii, ch. 13, p. 526. (Bl., 1893.) 



3358. TASTE AMONG PRIMITIVE 

 WOMEN Early Needle and Thread Geo- 

 metric Patterns. The first sewing-machine 

 was a needle or bodkin of bone, with dainty 

 sinew thread from the leg of the antelope, 

 and for thimble a little leather cap over the 

 ends of the fingers. Coarse, indeed, the 

 apparatus, but the hand was deft, the eye 

 was true, the sense of beauty was there, 

 and so that needlewoman of long ago 



*" "but this is fixt 



As are the roots of earth and base of all, 

 Man for the field and woman for the hearth ; 

 Man for the sword and for the needle she ; 

 Man with the head and woman with the heart." 



TENNYSON Princess, can. v, at. 16, 1. 9. 



