723 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Utility 



speak and think of living beings as we 

 should talk of the items in a store. Each 

 organism, like the smith in " The Fair Maid 

 of Perth," fights for its own hand in the 

 struggle for existence. If in the course 

 of its fight it aids or opposes the interests 

 of other living things it will receive benefit 

 or incur failure in a meed corresponding 

 to its own ways and means. This is really 

 the true philosophy of natural history study. 

 To " consider the lilies " as if they were 

 mere contrivances for human ends and 

 " uses " is a tolerably small-minded fashion 

 of regarding the children of life. To know 

 something of their histories, structure, and 

 relationships, and thereby to learn how life 

 jogs along its primrose way (or the re- 

 verse), is in itself an education worth much 

 seeking-after and much painstaking care. 

 WILSON Glimpses of Nature, ch. 1, p. 7. 

 (Hum., 1892.) 



3582. 



Truth an End for 



Itself Unexpected Utility Results. If you 

 ask me, To what end? of what use is such 

 a discovery? I answer, It is given to no 

 mortal man to predict what may be the re- 

 sult of any discovery in the realms of Na- 

 ture. When the electric current was discov- 

 ered, what was it? A curiosity. When the 

 first electric machine was invented, to what 

 use was it put? To make puppets dance 

 for the amusement of children. To-day it 

 is the most powerful engine of civilization. 

 But should our work have no other result 

 than this to know that certain facts in 

 Nature are thus and not otherwise, that 

 their causes were such and no others this 

 result in itself is good enough, and great 

 enough, since the end of man, his aim, his 

 glory, is the knowledge of the truth. 

 AGASSIZ Journey in Brazil, ch. 3, p. 95. 

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



3583. UTILITY OF DIVERGENCE 



A Maximum of Organic Forms in Each Area. 

 Divergence of character has a double 

 purpose and use. In the first place it ena- 

 bles a species which is being overcome by 

 rivals, or is in process of extinction by ene- 

 mies, to save itself by adopting new habits 

 or by occupying vacant places in Nature. 

 This is the immediate and obvious effect of 

 all the numerous examples of divergence of 

 character which we have pointed out. But 

 there is another and less obvious result, 

 which is that the greater the diversity in 

 the organisms inhabiting a country or dis- 

 trict the greater will be the total amount of 

 life that can be supported there. WALLACE 

 Darwinism, ch. 5, p. 77. (Hum.) 



3584. UTILITY OF MICRO-ORGAN- 

 ISMS Bacteria Useful as Well as Harmful- 

 Saprophytes and Parasites. A saprophyte 

 is an organism that obtains its nutrition 

 from dead organic matter. Its services, 

 of whatever nature, lie outside the tissues 

 of living animals. Its life is spent apart 

 from a " host." A parasite, on the other 



hand, lives always at the expense of some 

 other organism which is its host, in which 

 it lives and upon which it lives. There is 

 a third or intermediate group, known as 

 " facultative," owing to their ability to act 

 as parasites or saprophytes, as the exigen- 

 cies of their life-history may demand. 



The saprophytic organisms are, generally 

 speaking, those which contribute most to the 

 benefit of man, and the parasitic the reverse, 

 tho this statement is only approximately 

 true. In their relation to the processes of 

 fermentation, decomposition, nitrification, 

 etc., we shall see how great and invaluable 

 is the work which saprophytic microbes per- 

 form. [See DECOMPOSITION, BACTERIA OF.] 

 NEWMAN Bacteria, ch. 1, p. 27. (G. P. P., 

 1899.) 



3585. UTILITY SUBLIMATED TO 

 USELESSNESS Humanity Not Guided by the 

 Inconceivable. So long as the simple and 

 natural meaning was put upon utility, and 

 the good was identified with the pleasurable, 

 or the serviceable, the utilitarian theory of 

 morals did indicate at least some rule of 

 life, however low that rule might be. But 

 now that the apostles of that theory have 

 been driven to put upon utility a tran- 

 scendental meaning, and the pleasurable is 

 interpreted to refer not merely to the imme- 

 diate and visible effects of conduct on our- 

 selves or others, but to its remotest effects 

 upon all living beings, both now and for all 

 future time, the utilitarian theory in this 

 very process of sublimation becomes lifted 

 out of the sphere of human judgment. If 

 it be true " that there can be no correct idea 

 of a part without a correct idea of the cor- 

 relative whole," and if human conduct in its 

 tendencies and effects is only " a part of 

 universal conduct " that is to say, of the 

 whole system of the universe in its past, its 

 present, and its future then, as this whole 

 is beyond all our means of knowledge and 

 comprehension, it follows that utility, in 

 this .sense, can be no guide to us. ARGYLL 

 Unity of Nature, ch. 9, p. 208. (Burt.) 



3586. UTILITY, UNEXPECTED 



Conspicuous Coloring Protective Zebra Al- 

 most Invisible in Twilight. It may be 

 thought that such extremely conspicuous 

 markings as those of the zebra would be a 

 great danger in a country abounding with 

 lions, leopards, and other beasts of prey; 

 but it is not so. Zebras usually go in bands, 

 and are so swift and wary that they are 

 in little danger during the day. It is in 

 the evening or on moonlight nights, when 

 they go to drink, that they are chiefly ex- 

 posed to attack; and Mr. Francis Galton, 

 who has studied these animals in their na- 

 tive haunts, assures me that in twilight 

 they are not at all conspicuous, the stripes 

 of white and black so merging together into 

 a gray tint that it is very difficult to see 

 them at a little distance. We have here 

 an admirable illustration of how a glaring- 

 ly conspicuous style of marking for recog- 



