UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
birth of science began when men took up the experi- 
mental way. 
Look into Plutarch’s “Morals” and see some of 
the questions that he and his fellows used to dis- 
cuss at their debating clubs. They do not actually 
discuss the question that still survives among 
country people, “Why does the sunlight put out 
the fire?”’—a deception of the eye merely; but 
many of their discussions were upon subjects that 
a little experimentation would have settled at once. 
Here are some of their questions: — 
Why sea-water will not put out fire? Why a deer 
when it is taken sheds salt tears, and a boar sweet? 
A wild fig being bound around a garden fig-tree 
will keep the fruit from falling and promote its 
ripening. Why does a deer bury its cast-off horns? 
Why does a goat stop the entire herd by holding a 
branch of sea-holly in its mouth? Why does dew 
make fat people lean? Why does a vessel filled 
with water weigh more in winter than in summer? 
Why are waters hottest in the bottom of the sea? 
(Because heat shuns cold and flees to the bottom.) 
Why is the flesh of sheep bitten by wolves sweeter 
than that of others? 
Such matters of dispute show the childish va- 
garies of the human mind before the advent of the 
scientific method. It was largely out of this frame 
of mind that Christianity arose. The reports of its 
miracles were accepted without question. When 
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