Thoughts on Art and Life Part 22

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[Sidenote: Nature's Law]

65.

Nature never breaks her laws.

66.

Nature is constrained by the cause of her laws which dwells inborn in her.

67.

Without reason no effect is produced in nature; understand the reason and you will not need experience.

[Sidenote: Cause discovered by Effect]

68.

Before I proceed further I will make some experiments, because it is my intention to cite the experiment first and then to demonstrate by reasoning how such an experiment must necessarily take effect in such a manner. And this is the true rule by which investigations of natural phenomena must proceed; and although nature herself begins from the reason and ends in the result, we must pursue the contrary course and begin, as I said above, from experience and by it seek out the reason.

[Sidenote: Repet.i.tion of Experiment]

69.

Before deducing a general rule from this case repeat the experiment two or three times and see if the same results are produced.

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[Sidenote: Example of preceding Rule]

70.

It several bodies of equal weight and shape are dropped one after another at equal intervals of time, the distances between each successive body will be equally increased.

The experiment to prove the above-mentioned theorem respecting motion must be made thus: Take two b.a.l.l.s of equal weight and shape and let them fall from a great height so that when they start falling they touch one another, and let the investigator stand on the ground and watch whether the contact is maintained during their fall. This experiment must be repeated several times, so that the trial may not be marred by any accident and the experiment vitiated and the spectator deceived.

[Sidenote: Necessity of a.n.a.lysis]

71.

We know definitely that sight is infinitely swift and in an instant of time perceives countless shapes, nevertheless it only sees one object at a time. Let us take an example. You, O reader, will see the whole of this written page at a glance, and you will instantly realize that it is full of various letters, but you will not realize at that moment what these letters are nor what they signify; wherefore you will have to proceed word by word and line by line to take cognizance of these letters. Again, if you wish to reach the summit of a building you must mount step by step, {170} otherwise it will be impossible for you to reach the summit. And therefore I say to you whom nature has drawn to this art, if you wish to attain to a thorough knowledge of the forms of objects, you will begin by studying the details, and not proceed to the second until you have committed the first to memory and mastered it in practice, and if you do otherwise you will be wasting your time and protracting your studies. And remember first of all to acquire diligence, which signifies speed.

[Sidenote: Vision]

72.

Of the nature of the eye. Here are the forms, here the colours, here the form of every part of the universe are concentrated in a point, and that point is so great a marvel! O marvellous and stupendous necessity! thou dost compel by thy law, and by the most direct path, every effect to proceed from its cause. These things are verily miracles! I wrote in my Anatomy how in so small a s.p.a.ce the visual faculty can be reproduced and formed again in its whole expanse.

73.

In many cases one and the same thing is attracted by two violent forces,--necessity and power. The water falls in rain and by necessity the earth absorbs the humidity; the sun causes it to evaporate, not of necessity, but by power.

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[Sidenote: Unconscious Reasoning]

74.

The pupil of the eye in the air expands and contracts according to every degree of motion made by the sun. And with every dilation or contraction the same object will appear of a different size, although frequently the relative scale of surrounding circ.u.mstances does not allow us to perceive these variations in any single object we look at.

[Sidenote: The Eye]

75.

The pupil of the eye dilates and contracts in proportion to the variety of bright and dark objects which are reflected in it. In this case nature has afforded compensation to the visual faculty by contracting the pupil of the eye when it is offended by excess of light and by causing it to dilate when offended by excess of darkness, like the opening of the purse. And nature here behaves like the man who has too much light in his house and closes half the window, or more or less of it according to need; and when night comes he opens the window altogether so as to see better inside his house, and nature here adopts a continued process of compensation, by continually regulating and readjusting the expansion and contracting of the pupil, in proportion to the aforesaid obscurity and light which are continually reflected in it.

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[Sidenote: Water surrounding the Globe Spherical]

76.

When you collect facts relating to the science of the motion of water, remember to place under every proposition the uses to which it may be applied, in order that this knowledge may not be fruitless.

77.

This is a difficult question to answer, but I will nevertheless state my opinion. Water, which is clothed with air, desires naturally to cleave to its sphere because in this position it is without gravity.

This gravity is twofold,--the gravity of the whole which tends to the centre of the elements, and the gravity which tends to the centre of the waters of the spherical orb; if this were not so the water would form a half sphere only, which is the sphere described from the centre upwards. But I see no means in the human mind of acquiring knowledge with regard to this. We must say, as we say of the magnet which attracts iron, that such a virtue is an occult property of which there is an infinite quant.i.ty in nature.

78.

In the motion of earth against earth the repercussion of the portion struck is slight.

Water struck by water, eddies in circles around the spot where the shock has taken place.

The reverberation of the voice continues for a {173} great distance through the air; for a greater distance through fire. The mind travels for a still greater distance through the universe; but since it is finite it does not penetrate into infinity.