The Bossier banner., 1891-11-05
TRUTHS or NATURE.
Two of Them Discovered by a PoPt-Mind
anJI Matter One.

anti Matter One.
Wonderful is it not, that two of the
greatest truths of nature should have
been first discovered by poet, who
was not scientist at all?" said the
professor to Star reporter. ut was
Goethe whose genius inspired intuition
first lighted upon the bottom fact of
botany, since recognized, namely, that
each plant has but two paEts-Ieaf and
stem. The reproductive portions-pis-
til, petal, stigma, calyX and corolia-are
only modified leaves. Now and then,
as if for the very purpose of proving this
proposition, a green rose is developed
with leaf-like petals, and it is the same
way with other things vegetable
all revert occasionally to their primitive
forms.
THE other grand discovery made by
Goethe was in the philosophy of the
animal kingdom. One day, while walk
ing through the fields, he came upon
the skeleton of beast that had died.
A practical anatomist, if he had paused
to consider the remains, would have
tion of the bones, but the poet viewed
the whole framework of the animal
that had been with the enlarged vision
of theorist. While doing SO the fact
dawned upon him, recognized at this
later day by science, that the skull of
the creature was after all, only an en-
larged yertebrB or expanded section of
the backbone. The conclusion imme
diately followed that the brain was but
magnified portion of the spinal cord.
"Thus was new discovery in the
philosophy of nature first hit upon.
Science now recognizes it as truth.
Just as the flower is only leaf modified
for reproductive purposes, so the brain
is simply an extremity of the spinal
cord exfoliated into an elaborate; highly
convoluted organ of thinking.
Did you ever think what it meant by
what we call the convolutions of the
creature proverbially stupid-and you
will find that it is nearly smooth. The
brain of man, on the other hand, is so
covered with worm-like convolutions
| as to resemble SO much macaroni. Now,
l will show you by little sketch what
| these convolutions signify.
LET me have your pencil and note
| book Here is an outline, roughly
| slzetched, of Manhattan island as it was
before the white man landed upon it.
! You will observe that its entire shore
| line is only extended enough to accom-
| modate a few thousand ships more
along it. Now, observe what Man
haitian island is like to-day, as sketch
in the long wharves projecting from it
! like fringe on all sides. At these
| wharves all the commerce of the world
can be moored.
''Take notice how my pencil, follow
ing its contour as modified by mans in
genuity, goes in and out, tracing the
convolutions of the brain. What blood
is to the brain commerce is to New
York and the more surface afforded
for circulation or shore line for lying
against the better the thinking or. the
more active and enlarged the traffic. A
rather pretty illustration, is it not?
1.-THE grasp Of the human understand.
| ing expands every day. 1t is only a
few years since Humboldt conceived the
mighty truth that cosmos-the univer.
sal organization of things-was one
system, however many universes it may
contain, each atom in it depending upon
and having relation to all of the others.
Next came Lamarclx, who showed tn Il
all animals are kin.
''Then followed the great inventor OF
the spectroscope, who proved that all
of the stars are composed of the same
sorts of materials as those which make
up the earth. Finally came the discov,
erers who learned that the invisible
powers of nature-heat, light, sound
electricity, magnetism, etc.-arc al
forms of motion. All these propositions
have been demonstrated. What the
most advanced scientists are striving
now to prove is that mind and matter
are one and the same. That PROPOSE
ton represents the highest intellectual
effort of the age. Washington Star.
A Cool Store Closet.
| There is NO greater deSideratum iT