The Grenada gazette. (Grenada, Miss.) 1885-18??, 1886-10-30
FALlACIES.


England laureate wrote, many year
ago, that knowledge grows. bur
wisdom lingers.' 1t is, however, oper
to doubt whether knowledge is no
quite as much given to lingering at
wisdom. The popular beliefs which
still hold their ground in defiance O
educational processes are often moth
ing less than amazing, and of this thu
daily papers from time to time aafore
proof. For instance, IN esteemed con
temporary recently published as I
special a story about a man suffer
ing from living snakes in his stomach
The narrative was circumstantial ane
specific. The man was supposed ts
have swallowed the eggs Of thes'
snakes three years ago. They wer
Matched in his stomach. They livet
there, two of them for two years ant
the third for three years, and they gave
the poor man a great deal of pain ant
trouble. All the particulars were Sc
forth as soberly and apparently in al
good faith as though we were still ii
The Middle Ages. and as though thu
science Of physiology had not emerged
from q crude and ~infantile state.
No doubt thousands Of people read
that story without questioning it
truth. and it is equally certain that tn.
majority of them look upon such (
narrative as in nc way making AZ
undue demand upon their credulity,
That a man should swallow a young
snake IL a snakes egg, and that i
should develope and live in his stom
ach, is of course the kind of yarl
which nobody could accept who hat
The smallest knowledge OF physiology
because such knowledge would con
vince them that the alleged fact wa
III impossibility; that the snakes egg
it swallowed, would not be Matched
but digested; that a young reptile, if i
should or could find its way into a hu
man stomach, would incontinently di'
there; and that all stories OF live snake
harbored in peoples insides are neces
sarily inventions of the crudest descrip
ton. But though every school-bo,
ought to know this, it is only too evi
dent that a great many people do no
know it. and that these continue t.
put faith in tictions the Fundamental
absurdity Of which might commend
them to the simple aborigines. IL
the story of the snakes already re
ferred to it is gravely stated that ont
Of the elected ophidians was a garter
snake. The story would have been jus
as true if an anaconda had been select
cd to figure in it.
The newspapers that print ridiculous
stories of THIS kind are not altogether
blameless, for though they do not di
rectly indorse the statements they Civ,
currency to them, and no doubt Their
are many confiding folks who still be
lieve things because they find them il
the papers. But considering the inn
mense revenues spent on popular cdu
cation in this country it is not unrea
sonable to expect, at the close of tn,
nineteeth century, ali emancipation
from at least the more crude popula
fallacies which ignorance formerly fos
tered, and when such g%rotesque case
Of credulity as the Mercer Count,
story of the man being con
into a red-hot statue occur, ant
dissemination and growth of tn
show how wide is the area o
Egyptian darkness which favors tn
evolution of such rubbish. it become
clear that a great deal Of work-an.
even pioneer work at that-remains tt
be done. The people who believe ii
stone statues and Twin!
in mems stomachs are in Ger
tain branches of knowledge. whicl
to be m property, hope
lessly behind the age. Perhaps it i
too late to do much for them. but Ger
tainly their successors ought not to b.
permitted to grow up equally be
and the infusion Of a littl, ,
more practical science into the com
non school course is plainly required ,
the survival of the fallacies we hav, ,,
and many others which are no
deeply rooted Y. Tribune.
The Pullman Car Works.