The reason why : $b a careful collection of many hundreds of reasons for things which, though generally believed, are imperfectly understood. A book of condensed scientific knowledge for the million
John Stuart Mill · en
Whenever we behold a tear, let our kindliest sympathies awake--let
it have a sacred claim upon all that we can do to succour and
comfort under affliction. What rivers of tears have flown,
excited by the cruel and perverse ways of man! War has spread its
carnage and desolation, and the eyes of widows and orphans have
been suffused with tears! Intemperance has blighted the homes of
millions, and weeping and wailing have been incessant! A thousand
other evils which we may conquer have given birth to tears enough
to constitute a flood--a great tide of grief. Suppose we prize
this little philosophy, _and each one determine never to excite a
tear in another_. Watching the eye as the telegraph of the mind
within, let us observe it with anxious regard; and whether we are
moved to complaint by the existence of supposed or real wrongs,
let the indication of the coming tear be held as a sacred truce to
unkindly feeling, and our efforts be devoted to the substitution
of smiles for tears!
[Verse: "Who is as the wise man? and who knoweth the interpretation
of a thing? a man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness
of his face shall be changed."--ECCLESIASTES VIII.]
There is only one other matter to which we think it necessary
to allude, before we pass to the concluding section of our
work. It has been said (162), that snow which is _white_, keeps
the earth warm; that _white_ as a colour is _cool_, and that
_black_ absorbs _heat_ (230). These assertions may appear to be
contradictory, and, taken in connection with the fact of the
blackness of the skin of negroes in hot climates, may at a first
glance be considered unsatisfactory. They are, however, perfectly
reconcileable, and that too, without the slightest evasion of
the real bearing of the asserted facts. White snow is warm _on
account of its texture_, which, being woolly, forms a layer of
non-conducting substance over the surface of the earth, and _keeps
in its warmth_; white clothing, worn as a garment consisting
of a thin material, is cool, because _the white colour_ turns
back the rays of the sun that fall upon it. Swansdown, although
white, being a non-conductor, would be warm, because, though it
would reflect the light and heat, it would confine and accumulate
the heat of the body. The black skin of the negro is a _living
texture_, and is not subject to the same laws that govern dead
matter. The skin of the negro is largely provided with cells
which secrete a fatty matter that acts as a non-conductor of the
_external_ heat, and also a much larger number of perspiratory
glands than exist in the skins of Europeans. The perspiration
cools the blood, and carries off the _internal_ heat, while the
oily matter gives a shining surface to the skin, and reflects