The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-10-27
LUCUS A NON-LUCUS.


able article on the subject of "How Little
We Know" Notwithstanding the fact
that the subject seems an easy one, it is
nevertheless difficult matter to treat il
properly and in an entertaining manner
for the reason that what we do know is a
limited, and what we don't know an un.
limited field. 1t is, therefore, apparent
that anyone who attempts to discuss the
subject within the narrow sphere of a
self than he is capable of giving a salts
factory account of.
The Neius writer is, in a general way, stats
teal, at times argumentative and fire.
quently logical; there is more or less of the
fantastic running through the chapter and
once or twice it trenches upon the domain
humor. And it is riddled with errors, mis-
conceptions and strained conclusions. AS
Stunning to deal with cosmogony in narrow
sphere, it outrages the proprieties by for
saking logic and demonstrated conclusions
for the writer's tpse dirt statements which
seem to have occurred to him without in
vestigation of the subject and are paraded
before the reader as so many recognized
facts.
After some little moralizIng, the writer
launches out into some guess-work state
ments regarding the population of the
earth. He says-"For instance, we do not
know how many of our species there are
! on this globe, which we speckle like fly
blows on bladder" "Speckle" is good,
but the conclusion containing it is not.
Waving, for the time being, the awful
descent from what seemingly is a state
ment Of ponderous facts to a rather undig-
nified comparison, it might be proper to
ask what kind of bladder he means; if
one found in any member Of the animal
kingdom, his figures are sadly out of pro-
portion, unless there is one so far unheard
of many times larger than the largest bal
loon ever seen. If a human were as large
relatively as a fy-blow on any bladder
we know of, his other statement about the
population being six or seven hundred
millions might have more cogency. If he
does not know that the civilized nations
alone foot up in excess of such amount. he
has evidently devoted more study to rhet-
oric and figures of speech than to geogra-
ply and ethnology and if he does not
know that China alone has more than hall
OF his estimate" he is not as well
posted on the population of the
Oriental nations as is the average common
school student who has passed the primary
grades. Six or seven hundred million,
forsooth, when the flowery land, judging
from actual figures and close estimates
based upon the best attainable knowledge,
has nearly 400, 100000, and certainly not to
exceed one-fourth of the grand total! Oh,
no; six or seven hundred millions is not as
near as we get to it by great deal: we
say that we are still this side of the actual
figure, which was reckoned to be billion
and half many years ago, and which is
now presumed to be nearer two billions
than the former amount.
Of course we do not knoic just how many
people there are on the earth. We do not
knoW just how many there are in the United
States, but any person who came along
with the announcement that it was thirty
or forty millions and that this was as near
as we could get at it, would be laughed into
silence-not because the laughers them
selves know what we have, even approx
mately, but because they do know that
there are many millions more than above
set forth. We are sure that the
population is sixty millions, it may
reach sixty-fve millions, and few of US
showing seventy millions; just as we are
sure that the globes inhabitants number a
billion and half, perhaps a billion and
three-quarters and it may be two billions
and yet no one or more persons have made
the count We know by the same means
that we know about the distance of Eng
land without measuring it, that the Eiffel
tower is 30Ometres in height without having
seen it-because there are other means
than mere ocular demonstration and
physical contact of knowing tangible facts
And the circumstance suggested by the
Nc,uS correspondent that before arriving at
conclusion we must know something
more about the retired" districts of
Africa, the inner recesses of South
America and the wilderness of Central
Australia only has general tendency to
make his position the more untenable,
since such unknown fragments of the
human family have but the effect OF swell
ing the sum total which, without them, is
vastly beyond his reckoning.
The statement that the small portion of
the earth of which we know is but trail
on the mountain is another of those
extravagant comparisons of which he
seems to be prolific, only in this
instance the extravaganza is in
the direction of initiation instead
of contraction as formerly A trail on the
mountain represents a very insignificant
proportion of the eminence, not a millionth
part of it in some instances, and we think
that on reflection the pell-mell statistician
would scarcely be willing to say that only
millionth part of the globe was known to
US; might he not go little further and say
the portion of it which is unknown is COM
paratively trifling! The territory men
toned ard the poles comprise nearly all of
such country, and they do not amount to a
fourth of the earth's land The regions
spoken of as existing in the United States
which have never been visited by white
man, would have had more force if spoken
before the western frontier ceased to be;
in referring to any part of the public do
main now, it is scarcely necessary to make
! an exception in favor of color or race since
there are manifestly few places that the