Traditions 

 Transformation 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



698 



period of Yaou, something more than 2,000 

 years before our era, has been identified by 

 some persons with the universal deluge de- 

 scribed in the Old Testament; but according 

 to Mr. Davis, who accompanied two of our 

 embassies to China, and who has carefully 

 examined their written accounts, the Chinese 

 cataclysm is therein described as interrupt- 

 ing the business of agriculture, rather than 

 as involving a general destruction of the 

 human race. The great Yu was celebrated 

 for having " opened nine channels to draw 

 off the waters," which " covered the low hills 

 and bathed the foot of the highest moun- 

 tains." Mr. Davis suggests that a great de- 

 rangement of waters of the Yellow River, 

 one of the largest in the world, might even 

 now cause the flood of Yaou to be repeated, 

 and lay the most fertile and populous plains 

 of China under water. In modern times the 

 bursting of the banks of an artificial canal, 

 into which a portion of the Yellow River 

 has been turned, has repeatedly given rise 

 to the most dreadful accidents, and is a 

 source of perpetual anxiety to the govern- 

 ment. It is easy, therefore, to imagine 

 how much greater may have been the in- 

 undation if this valley was ever convulsed 

 by a violent earthquake. LYELL Principles 

 of Geology, bk. i, ch. 2, p. 7. (A., 1854.) 



3455. TRAINING, SCIENTIFIC-Ite 



Educational Value. I have already ex- 

 pressed a favorable opinion of the old clas- 

 sical methods of mind-training, but that 

 opinion does not exclude the idea of other 

 methods which may be equally as valuable. 

 Of one thing we may be quite certain, and 

 that is that in the habits of careful ob- 

 servation and recording, which are neces- 

 sary to the study of any science, the per- 

 ceptive faculties of the mind receive a train- 

 ing which cannot be regarded as inferior 

 to that secured by any other method. In 

 considering the data which are obtained 

 by perception, the reflective faculties also ob- 

 tain a training of the highest value. Teach- 

 ers of science, therefore, must not be regard- 

 ed wholly from a technical point of view, 

 but must be entitled to a proper recognition 

 from the pedagogic side. WILEY Relations 

 of Chemistry to Industrial Progress (Ad- 

 dress at Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind., 

 J896, p. 50). 



3456. TRANSCENDENTALISM IN 



SCIENCE Matter Analyzed into Force. 

 There are eddies in every stream eddies 

 where rubbish will collect and circle for a 

 time. But the ultimate bearing of scien- 

 tific truth cannot be mistaken. Nothing 

 is more remarkable in the present state of 

 physical research than what may be called 

 the transcendental character of its results. 

 And what is transcendentalism but the ten- 

 dency to trace up all things to the rela- 

 tion in which they stand to abstract ideas? 

 And what is this but to bring all physical 

 phenomena nearer and nearer into relation 

 with the phenomena of mind? The old 



speculations of philosophy which cut the 

 ground from materialism by showing how 

 little we know of matter are now being 

 daily reenforced by the subtle analysis of 

 the physiologist, the chemist, and the elec- 

 trician. Under that analysis matter dis- 

 solves and disappears, surviving only as the 

 phenomena of force; which again is seen 

 converging along all its lines to some com- 

 mon center " sloping through darkness up 

 to God." ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 2, p. 

 70. (Burt.) 



3457. TRANSFER OF THOUGHT 



IMPOSSIBLE Signs Awaken Corresponding 

 Idea No Resemblance between Thought and 

 Sign. Consider, with Professor Bowne, what 

 happens when two people converse together 

 and know each other's mind. 



" No thoughts leave the mind of one and 

 cross into the mind of the other. When 

 we speak of an exchange of thought, even 

 the crudest mind knows that this is a mere 

 figure of speech. ... To perceive 

 another's thought we must construct his 

 thought within ourselves; . . . this 

 thought is our own and is strictly original 

 with us. At the same time we owe it to 

 the other ; and if it had not originated with 

 him, it would probably not have originated 

 with us. But what has the other done? 

 . . This: by an entirely mysterious 

 world-order, the speaker is enabled to pro- 

 duce a series of signs which are totally un- 

 like [the] thought, but which, by virtue 

 of the same mysterious order, act as a series 

 of incitements upon the hearer, so that he 

 constructs within himself the corresponding 

 mental state. The act of the speaker con- 

 sists in availing himself of the proper in- 

 citements. The act of the hearer is im- 

 mediately only the reaction of the soul 

 against the incitement. . . . All com- 

 munion between finite minds is of this sort." 

 JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 8, p. 219. 

 (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



3458. TRANSFIGURATION OF PHE- 

 NOMENA BY LAW Need of Law in Spiri- 

 tual World. I confess that even when in 

 the first dim vision the organizing hand of 

 law moved among the unordered truths of 

 my spiritual world, poor and scantily fur- 

 nished as it was, there seemed to come 

 over it the beauty of a transfiguration. The 

 change was as great as from the old chaotic 

 world of Pythagoras to the symmetrical and 

 harmonious universe of Newton. My spiri- 

 tual world before was a chaos of facts; my 

 theology a Pythagorean system trying to 

 make the best of phenomena apart from the 

 idea of law. I make no charge against the- 

 ology in general. I speak of my own. And 

 I say that I saw it to be in many essential 

 respects centuries behind every department 

 of science I knew. It was the one region 

 still unpossessed by law. I saw then why 

 men of science distrust theology; why those 

 who have learned to look upon law as au- 



