Science Primers, Introductory

Part 1

Science Primers. INTRODUCTORY.

PROFESSOR HUXLEY, F.R.S.

=Toronto:=

CANADA PUBLISHING CO.,

(LIMITED.)

Entered according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighty-one by MACMILLAN & CO., LONDON, in the Office of the Minister of Agriculture.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PART. SECT.

I. NATURE AND SCIENCE.

PAGE

1. 〃 Sensations and Things 5

2. 〃 Causes and Effects 5

3. 〃 The reason Why. Explanation 6

4. 〃 Properties and Powers 7

5. 〃 Artificial and Natural Objects. Nature 8

6. 〃 Artificial Things are only Natural Things shaped and brought together or separated by Men 8

7. 〃 Many Objects and Chains of Causes and Effects in Nature are out of our reach 10

8. 〃 The Order of Nature: nothing happens by Accident, and there is no such thing as Chance 10

9. 〃 Laws of Nature; Laws are not Causes 12

10. 〃 Knowledge of Nature is the Guide of Practical Conduct 14

11. 〃 Science: The Knowledge of the Laws of Nature obtained by Observation, Experiment, and Reasoning 16

II. MATERIAL OBJECTS.—(A.) MINERAL BODIES.

12. 〃 The Natural Object Water 19

13. 〃 A Tumbler of Water 20

14. 〃 Water occupies Space; it offers Resistance; it has Weight; and is able to transfer Motion which it has acquired; it is therefore a form of Matter 20

15. 〃 Water is a liquid 21

16. 〃 Water is almost incompressible 22

17. 〃 The meaning of Weight 24

Part 2

18. 〃 Gravity and Gravitation 25

19. 〃 The cause of Weight: Attraction: Force 27

20. 〃 The Weight of Water is Proportioned to its Bulk 28

21. 〃 The Measuring of Weights. The Balance 29

22. 〃 The Weight of the same Bulk or Volume of Water is Constant under the same conditions. Mass. Density 30

23. 〃 Equal Volumes of Different Things under the same circumstances, have Different Weights: the Density of Different Bodies is Different 32

24. 〃 The Meaning of Heavy and Light—Specific Gravity 33

25. 〃 Things of greater Specific Gravity than Water sink in Water; Things of less Specific Gravity float 34

26. 〃 A Body which Floats in Water always occupies as much Space beneath the level of the Surface of the Water as is equal to the Volume of Water which weighs as much as that Body; in other words, it displaces its own Weight of Water 36

27. 〃 Water Presses in all Directions 37

28. 〃 The Transference of Motion by Moving Water: the Momentum of Moving Water 40

29. 〃 The Energy of Moving Water 43

30. 〃 The Properties of Water are Constant 47

31. 〃 Increase of Heat at first causes Water to Increase in Volume 48

32. 〃 Increase of Heat at length causes Water to become Steam 50

33. 〃 The taking away of Heat from Steam causes the Steam to change into Hot Water 51

34. 〃 When Water is changed into Steam, its Volume becomes about 1,700 times greater than it was at first 51

35. 〃 Gases or Elastic Fluids. Air 52

36. 〃 Steam is an Elastic Fluid or Gas 54

37. 〃 Gases and Vapours 55

38. 〃 The Evaporation of Water at ordinary Temperatures 56

39. 〃 When Hot Water is cooled, it Contracts to begin with, but after a time Expands 57

40. 〃 Water cooled still further becomes the transparent brittle solid Ice 58

41. 〃 Ice has less Specific Gravity than the Water from which it was formed 59

42. 〃 Hoar Frost is the Gaseous Water which exists in the Atmosphere, condensed and converted into Ice Crystals 60

43. 〃 When Ice is warmed it begins to change back into Water as soon as the Temperature reaches 32° 61

44. 〃 Ice the solid, Water the liquid, and Steam the gas, are three states of one natural object; the Condition of each State being a certain Amount of Heat 62

45. 〃 The Phenomena of Heat are the Effects of a rapid Motion of the Particles of Matter 63

Part 3

46. 〃 The Structure of Water 65

47. 〃 Suppositions or Hypotheses; their Uses and their Value 67

48. 〃 The Hypothesis that Water is composed of Separate Particles (Molecules) 68

49. 〃 All Matter is probably made up either of Molecules or of Atoms 70

50. 〃 Elementary Bodies are neither destroyed nor is their Quantity increased in Nature 72

51. 〃 Simple Mixture 73

52. 〃 Mixture followed by Increase of Density; Alcohol and Water 74

53. 〃 Solution; Water Dissolves Salt 76

54. 〃 Quicklime and Water: Plaster of Paris and Water: Combination 79

55. 〃 Mineral bodies may take on definite shapes and grow, or increase in size, by the addition of like parts 82

(B.) LIVING BODIES.

56. 〃 The Wheat Plant and the substances of which it is composed 83

57. 〃 The common Fowl and the Substances of which it is Composed 85

58. 〃 Certain Constituents of the Body are very similar in the Wheat Plant and in the Fowl 86

59. 〃 Proteid Substances are met with in Nature only in Animals and Plants; and Animals and Plants always contain Proteids 87

60. 〃 What is meant by the word Living? 88

61. 〃 The Living Plant increases in Size, by adding to the Substances which compose its Body, like Substances; these, however, are not derived from without, but are manufactured within the Body of the Plant from simpler Materials 88

62. 〃 The Living Plant, after it has grown up, detaches part of its Substance, which has the Power of developing into a similar Plant, as a Seed 90

63. 〃 The Living Animal increases in Size by adding to the Substances which compose its Body, like Substances; these, however, are chiefly derived directly from other Animals or from Plants 90

64. 〃 The living Animal, after it has grown up, detaches part of its Substance, which has the Power of growing into a similar Animal, as an Egg 91

65. 〃 Living Bodies differ from Mineral Bodies in their Essential Composition, in the manner of their Growth, and in the fact that they are reproduced by Germs 91

III. IMMATERIAL OBJECTS.

66. 〃 Mental Phenomena 92

67. 〃 The order of Mental Phenomena: Psychology 93

SCIENCE PRIMERS.

INTRODUCTORY.

I. NATURE AND SCIENCE.

1. =Sensations and Things.=

Part 4

All the time that we are awake we are learning by means of our =senses= something about the world in which we live and of which we form a part; we are constantly aware of feeling, or hearing, or smelling, and, unless we happen to be in the dark, of seeing; at intervals we taste. We call the information thus obtained =sensation=.

When we have any of these sensations we commonly say that we feel, or hear, or smell, or see, or taste, something. A certain scent makes us say we smell onions; a certain flavour, that we taste apples; a certain sound, that we hear a carriage; a certain appearance before our eyes, that we see a tree; and we call that which we thus perceive by the aid of our senses a =thing= or an =object=.

2. =Causes and Effects.=

Moreover, we say of all these things, or objects, that they are the =causes= of the sensations in question, and that the sensations are the =effects= of these causes. For example, if we hear a certain sound, we say it is caused by a carriage going along the road, or that it is the effect, or the consequence, of a carriage passing along. If there is a strong smell of burning, we believe it to be the effect of something on fire, and look about anxiously for the cause of the smell. If we see a tree, we believe that there is a thing or object, which is the cause of that appearance in our field of view.

3. =The reason Why. Explanation.=

In the case of the smell of burning, when we find on looking about, that something actually is on fire, we say indifferently either that we have found out the cause of the smell, or that we know the =reason why= we perceive that smell; or that we have =explained= it. So that to know the reason why of anything, or to explain it, is to know the cause of it. But that which is the cause of one thing is the effect of another. Thus, suppose we find some smouldering straw to be the cause of the smell of burning, we immediately ask what set it on fire, or what is the cause of its burning? Perhaps we find that a lighted lucifer match has been thrown into the straw, and then we say that the lighted match was the cause of the fire. But a lucifer match would not be in that place unless some person had put it there. That is to say, the presence of the lucifer match is an effect produced by somebody as cause. So we ask why did any one put the match there? Was it done carelessly, or did the person who put it there intend to do so? And if so, what was his motive, or the cause which led him to do such a thing? And what was the reason for his having such a motive? It is plain that there is no end to the questions, one arising out of the other, that might be asked in this fashion.

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