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Hidden Mystery—No. 5.
HIDDEN MYSTERY—No . 5 .
By SYDNEY T . KLEIN , F . L . S ., F . R . A . S ., & c , WORSHIPFUL MASTEI Q UATUOR CORONATI LODGE , NO . 207 ( 1 . BE A UTY ,
At the close of the meeting of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge , on the 7 th , inst ., the W . M . concluded his series of "Hidden Mysteries" in the following words : In each of my former demonstrations I have given you illustrations from one of the physical sciences , showing that , on the material plane , all physical work is rendered possible , and is , indeed , accomplished by sympathy , and
by sympathy alone . The same principle may even be seen in the commonest source of power with which we are acquainted , namely , in the working of a steam engine ; the machinery can only be kept in motion provided the steam is let into the cylinder at the exact time when the piston is in a particular position , if the steam entered the cylinder at any other time the engine would be brought to a standstill , and no work could be done ,
however great the force stored up in the boiler . It is , therefore , provided that each thrust is given , automatically , in exact time with the revolution of the shaft ; this may be seen , perhaps , more clearly in the case of a heavy swing ; a single slight push will move it only a few inches , but a repetition of these slight pushes will gradually augment its motion until it swings to its full capacity ; but these pushes must be timed to be given in sympathy
with the time of the swing , which depends upon the length of the suspending rope , otherwise , instead of augmenting the swing , it will destroy its motion . In the illustration taken from Electricity ( Mystery No . 2 ) we saw the working of Sympathetic vibrations at great distances without material contact ; we found the force intimately connected with chemical action ( Mystery No . 3 ) and analogous in many respects to that wonderful force
which we know as Vegetable and Animal Life . Can we then carry our investigation still further and trace that wonderful force Life , also exerting its influence on other forms of Life under the same law of Sympathetic action ? I think we car . —I will first take what I believe to be an example of Animal Life appreciating Vegetable Life , and , to understand this , let us for one moment return to Mystery No . 1 and consider the curious fact
that , if we are in a room wilh a piano and we sing a certain note , say E flat , we not only hear that note coming back from the piano , but , if we examine the strings , we find that all the E flats are actually vibrating in sympathy , because they are in perfect harmony with the note given out by the " voice , but none of the other strings are responding because they are out of harmony . With this simile in mind let us now consider the curious fact that a moth
always lays its eggs on that particular plant upon which the caterpillars , when they hatch out of these eggs , must feed ; the study of the Life History of Insects has always been of great interest to me as I firml y believe that we are on the verge of a great discovery in Psychology and that the first indications are being revealed to us through the investigation of the Biology of Insects . Some of you may perhaps have watched this process of
ovipositing , as I havedone , and noticed how the female moth will hover in a peculiar way over different plants , but does not alight until she comes to a plant near akin to the one she is seeking . She then alights , but remains on tip toe , as it were , with legs outstretched and wings quivering , and sDon mounts again into the air ; it is only when she alights on the proper food plant that she shows unmistakeably that she knows her quest is ended and
her eggs are laid . This particular plant has no other attractions for her ; she takes her food irrespectively from any other flower which secretes honey , and yet , when she is ready to fulfil her destiny , she is unerringly drawn towards that particular plant which must be the food of her off spring . What is this wonderful sense ? We call it instinct , a name which is made to over all other senses in the lower animals , of which we have no cognizance
ourselves . Let us take our senses as a guide . We find that they are all based on the appreciation of vibrations , of greater or less rapidity , by means of organs specially adapted to vibrate in sympathy with those vibrations , and thus we gain knowledge of external things . As we saw in Mystery No . 1 two iron bars , when vibrating close to each other , gave out a pure musical note when they were in perfect harmony , and they then had , as it were ,
" rest" together , but when one was put evensl'gh lyout of harmony there was discord and " unrest . " In our sense of hearing we can only appreciate up to 40 , 000 vibrations as a musical sound , whereas we have seen that with light and electrical discharges we can appreciate sympathetic frequencies of many millions , and indeed many hundreds of millions , in a se : ond , and yet it is possible that , in the sense we are now examining of life appreciating
life , we may be in the presence of frequencies as far removed from light as light is from sound ; if then we may follow the analogy from our highest senses , we seem to get a clear explanation of the mystery of insect discrimination . The insect in her then state could have no pleasure in the presence of certain plants , their modes of frequency being out of sympathy with that particular insect life , and it may be conceived that not only is there no
inducement for the insect to alight on that plant , but that even in its near proximity that insect would feel a restlessness . When , however , a plant is reached which is near akin to the one required , less antipathy or unrest would be felt , and when the true species of plant is reached , ad would be harmony , pleasure , and rest , the functions of insect life would be vivified , and its life work accomplished under the influences of sympathetic action .
I hive made several other investigations on this subject but 1 must only give one more to illustrate the higher form of Animal Life appreciating Animal Life . There is a large class of insects called Lclineuiiiouidic which lay their eggs in the bodies of other caterpillars and , as in the case of a moth laying its egg on the special food plant upon which its caterpillars can leed , so does each species of these insects unerringly lay their eggs in the bod y of a particular kind of cateroillar . It must be a wonderful sens *
which can enable an Ichneumon Fly to do this . It has never seen a caterh iu , ' * e ^ ore ' as the egg , from which its own caterpillar was "a died , was laid inside the body of one of those caterpillars , and the caterpillar upon which it fed had been eaten up and disappeared at least six months before the Ichneumon Fly had made its way out of its o vn cocoon ; d J " . - 'his insect is not only forced , by some mysterious power , to lay its wrvV -M 16 ^ ° ^ ° * a cater P '" i but there is is only one species wnicn will serve its purpose , and it has to hunt up this caterpillar
Hidden Mystery—No. 5.
from among thousands of other different species . Let me put before you perhaps the most mysterious illustration which we have under this heading , wherein the Ichneumon fly cannot even get sight of , nor emp ! oy , any sense similar to our own for its dete ion . There are several specimens of moths whose caterpillars live in the \ cry heart of trees . We will take the case of the caterpillar of Zeuzera , / TCsculi , the
Leopard moth ; the egg of this moth is laid in a crevice of the bark and when first hatched , the small larva penetrates through the bark into the centre of an apple , pear , or plum tree , and then commences to eat its way upwards , forming at first a very small tunnel but gradually increasing , as the caterpillar grows larger , into a passage of about half an inch in diameter ; in such a position , surrounded as it is by solid wood the thickness
of which in its thinnest part , would probably not be less than one and a half or two inches , it would be thought that the caterpillar would have been safe from its enemies , but it is not so . There is a large Ichneumon fly which cannot propagate its species unless it can lay its eggs in the body of this particular caterpillar . This Ichneumon fly can , from outside , not only tell that inside the stem of that tree there is a caterpillar , but can locate
the exact spot and , still more wonderful , is able to determine whether or not that caterpillar is the particular species it is in search of . There are numerous other species of moths whose caterpillars feed in the centre of trees , and yet the female Ichneumon is able to mark down as her prey , although far out of reach of any sense possessed by ourselves , that one species which alone can serve her purpose . As soon as she has located the
exact position of the caterpillar , she unsheathes a long delicate ovipositor , with which she is provided , and drills it right through the intervening solid wood until it pierces the body of the caterpillar ; she then lays an egg down that long tube into its body , and repeats the process two or three times . The caterpillar itself does not appear to feel any inconvenience from this process , and continues to feed and grow larger , but it has the seeds of death within
itself , and the two or three little caterpillars , which hatch out of the eggs of the Ichneumon , are also growing rapidly inside it . At last , when the time comes that the large caterpillar should have been full fed , and it has eaten its way outwards until it rests close under the bark , preparatory to turning into a chrysalis , its enemies finish their destructive
work , and , if the tree is then opened , the empty skin and cartilage skeleton of the large caterpillar is found together with two or three large cocoons ; these cocoons if kept will produce in time specimens of the Ichneumon fly , and these will in their turn go about their murderous work as soon as their proper hunting season comes round again .
This is only an isolated case of thousands of similar occurrences in every locality ; in fact , if you walk along any palings in the country in the early summer , you will see at every few steps the evidence of similar tragedies . Those of you who live in the country must often have seen on palings little heaps containing a dozen or more of ths yellow Microgaster Cocoons , and if these are examined carefully they will be found to be surrounding the skin of a caterpillar . These minute cocoons may be kept under a wine glass ,
and , from each , an Ichneumon lly with its sharp ovipositor will emerge in due time . It is curious what mistakes can be made even by intelligent persons . I have had the skin of the caterpillar and this little heap of yellow Microgaster Cocoons sent me to examine , and have been seriously asked whether this was not a true case of Parthenogenesis , the suggestion being that the caterpillar had actually laid eggs , instead of waiting until it had become a moth , and that its efforts to alter the course of nature had been too much for its constitution , and it had died in the act .
There are other illustrations I should like to have given but time will not permit ; the most remarkable being , perhaps , Ihe knowledge a Queen Bee possesses of the proximity of another Queen , even when that other is still in the pupa state , sealed up in a waxen cell . I have made numerous experiments with queens of the common black English bee ( Apis Mellifica ' and also the yellow-stripped Italian bee ( Apis ligustica ) which belongs to
the same order ( Hymenoptera ) as the Ichneumon flies and the same marvellous sense of life appreciating life at a distance and through solid matter , is experienced . What then is this marvellous force Animal Lifel We feel that it is not the same as our innocent self , it does not enable us to control our passions , on the contrary it feeds those passions ; it does not endue us with the feeling of moral responsibility , on the contrary it wars against
restraint ; it does not contain that divine germ which we feel at times impelling us , in spite of ourselves , to thoughts and aspirations so far above all material objects that even our corporeal senses shudder at the knowledge we seem to get , at those intervals , of the infinities of perfection which we know to be the very attributes of the Godhead . Animal Life is not then the Siimmum
boniim , it is not perfection , the Beauty of my subject , it is not Eternal Life ; can we then carry our subject any further ? Can we with our finite senses and by means of analogy in the Physical Sciences , get any nearer to the understanding of that marvellous infinity the ¦ Kno-oledgi 1 of God which we are told by Christ is " Life Eternal . " ( . )
In the series of Hidden Mysteries I have laid bsforeyou ^ during my year year of office , I have tried to lead you to the contemplation of this , the last , and indeed , the greatest mystery which surrounds us in our earthly pilgrimage . If I have been successful in my endeavours , I may now attempt to lay before you some thoughts by which we may , perhaps , get a clearer idea of even this great marvel .
Animal life , vegetable life , chemical action , electricity , light , and material vibrations , are then , purely mundane , they will disappear when the fiat of the Deity is withdrawn and matter ceasas to exist , they are forces acting under finite conditions , and are only appreciated by us under the finite conceptions of time and space . They are the result , however , of the will of the Deity , the materialisation of His thoughts , and we have examined
them for the purpose of trying to gain thereby , though only " as through a glass , darkly , " a knowledge of the Creator . Once more , then , let us take the highest form of these , namely , " Life , " and again , working upwards , try to take another step forward . Physiology shows us that the human body is kept alive , asa whole , by the continual processof building up fresh tissues and breaking down andcasting off those which have become worn out . Thisis accomplished by means of , and the whole life and heat of the body are dependent upon ,
the blood—hence the general expression " shedding of blood ' is synonymous with the " taking of life . " This blood , though appearing to us as an ordinary fluid , is found on closer examination to be composed of very small living entities completely detached from each other , and each capable of independent motion . In a former treatise ( the Law of Dakhiel , paa * e 106 ) I have already referred to the old Semitic principle that " The life of fie-h lies in the blood "—( Leviticus , xvii ., 2 )—and gave examples , showing that , in the most ancient races , the idea of life and blood were synonymous , thi
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Hidden Mystery—No. 5.
HIDDEN MYSTERY—No . 5 .
By SYDNEY T . KLEIN , F . L . S ., F . R . A . S ., & c , WORSHIPFUL MASTEI Q UATUOR CORONATI LODGE , NO . 207 ( 1 . BE A UTY ,
At the close of the meeting of the Quatuor Coronati Lodge , on the 7 th , inst ., the W . M . concluded his series of "Hidden Mysteries" in the following words : In each of my former demonstrations I have given you illustrations from one of the physical sciences , showing that , on the material plane , all physical work is rendered possible , and is , indeed , accomplished by sympathy , and
by sympathy alone . The same principle may even be seen in the commonest source of power with which we are acquainted , namely , in the working of a steam engine ; the machinery can only be kept in motion provided the steam is let into the cylinder at the exact time when the piston is in a particular position , if the steam entered the cylinder at any other time the engine would be brought to a standstill , and no work could be done ,
however great the force stored up in the boiler . It is , therefore , provided that each thrust is given , automatically , in exact time with the revolution of the shaft ; this may be seen , perhaps , more clearly in the case of a heavy swing ; a single slight push will move it only a few inches , but a repetition of these slight pushes will gradually augment its motion until it swings to its full capacity ; but these pushes must be timed to be given in sympathy
with the time of the swing , which depends upon the length of the suspending rope , otherwise , instead of augmenting the swing , it will destroy its motion . In the illustration taken from Electricity ( Mystery No . 2 ) we saw the working of Sympathetic vibrations at great distances without material contact ; we found the force intimately connected with chemical action ( Mystery No . 3 ) and analogous in many respects to that wonderful force
which we know as Vegetable and Animal Life . Can we then carry our investigation still further and trace that wonderful force Life , also exerting its influence on other forms of Life under the same law of Sympathetic action ? I think we car . —I will first take what I believe to be an example of Animal Life appreciating Vegetable Life , and , to understand this , let us for one moment return to Mystery No . 1 and consider the curious fact
that , if we are in a room wilh a piano and we sing a certain note , say E flat , we not only hear that note coming back from the piano , but , if we examine the strings , we find that all the E flats are actually vibrating in sympathy , because they are in perfect harmony with the note given out by the " voice , but none of the other strings are responding because they are out of harmony . With this simile in mind let us now consider the curious fact that a moth
always lays its eggs on that particular plant upon which the caterpillars , when they hatch out of these eggs , must feed ; the study of the Life History of Insects has always been of great interest to me as I firml y believe that we are on the verge of a great discovery in Psychology and that the first indications are being revealed to us through the investigation of the Biology of Insects . Some of you may perhaps have watched this process of
ovipositing , as I havedone , and noticed how the female moth will hover in a peculiar way over different plants , but does not alight until she comes to a plant near akin to the one she is seeking . She then alights , but remains on tip toe , as it were , with legs outstretched and wings quivering , and sDon mounts again into the air ; it is only when she alights on the proper food plant that she shows unmistakeably that she knows her quest is ended and
her eggs are laid . This particular plant has no other attractions for her ; she takes her food irrespectively from any other flower which secretes honey , and yet , when she is ready to fulfil her destiny , she is unerringly drawn towards that particular plant which must be the food of her off spring . What is this wonderful sense ? We call it instinct , a name which is made to over all other senses in the lower animals , of which we have no cognizance
ourselves . Let us take our senses as a guide . We find that they are all based on the appreciation of vibrations , of greater or less rapidity , by means of organs specially adapted to vibrate in sympathy with those vibrations , and thus we gain knowledge of external things . As we saw in Mystery No . 1 two iron bars , when vibrating close to each other , gave out a pure musical note when they were in perfect harmony , and they then had , as it were ,
" rest" together , but when one was put evensl'gh lyout of harmony there was discord and " unrest . " In our sense of hearing we can only appreciate up to 40 , 000 vibrations as a musical sound , whereas we have seen that with light and electrical discharges we can appreciate sympathetic frequencies of many millions , and indeed many hundreds of millions , in a se : ond , and yet it is possible that , in the sense we are now examining of life appreciating
life , we may be in the presence of frequencies as far removed from light as light is from sound ; if then we may follow the analogy from our highest senses , we seem to get a clear explanation of the mystery of insect discrimination . The insect in her then state could have no pleasure in the presence of certain plants , their modes of frequency being out of sympathy with that particular insect life , and it may be conceived that not only is there no
inducement for the insect to alight on that plant , but that even in its near proximity that insect would feel a restlessness . When , however , a plant is reached which is near akin to the one required , less antipathy or unrest would be felt , and when the true species of plant is reached , ad would be harmony , pleasure , and rest , the functions of insect life would be vivified , and its life work accomplished under the influences of sympathetic action .
I hive made several other investigations on this subject but 1 must only give one more to illustrate the higher form of Animal Life appreciating Animal Life . There is a large class of insects called Lclineuiiiouidic which lay their eggs in the bodies of other caterpillars and , as in the case of a moth laying its egg on the special food plant upon which its caterpillars can leed , so does each species of these insects unerringly lay their eggs in the bod y of a particular kind of cateroillar . It must be a wonderful sens *
which can enable an Ichneumon Fly to do this . It has never seen a caterh iu , ' * e ^ ore ' as the egg , from which its own caterpillar was "a died , was laid inside the body of one of those caterpillars , and the caterpillar upon which it fed had been eaten up and disappeared at least six months before the Ichneumon Fly had made its way out of its o vn cocoon ; d J " . - 'his insect is not only forced , by some mysterious power , to lay its wrvV -M 16 ^ ° ^ ° * a cater P '" i but there is is only one species wnicn will serve its purpose , and it has to hunt up this caterpillar
Hidden Mystery—No. 5.
from among thousands of other different species . Let me put before you perhaps the most mysterious illustration which we have under this heading , wherein the Ichneumon fly cannot even get sight of , nor emp ! oy , any sense similar to our own for its dete ion . There are several specimens of moths whose caterpillars live in the \ cry heart of trees . We will take the case of the caterpillar of Zeuzera , / TCsculi , the
Leopard moth ; the egg of this moth is laid in a crevice of the bark and when first hatched , the small larva penetrates through the bark into the centre of an apple , pear , or plum tree , and then commences to eat its way upwards , forming at first a very small tunnel but gradually increasing , as the caterpillar grows larger , into a passage of about half an inch in diameter ; in such a position , surrounded as it is by solid wood the thickness
of which in its thinnest part , would probably not be less than one and a half or two inches , it would be thought that the caterpillar would have been safe from its enemies , but it is not so . There is a large Ichneumon fly which cannot propagate its species unless it can lay its eggs in the body of this particular caterpillar . This Ichneumon fly can , from outside , not only tell that inside the stem of that tree there is a caterpillar , but can locate
the exact spot and , still more wonderful , is able to determine whether or not that caterpillar is the particular species it is in search of . There are numerous other species of moths whose caterpillars feed in the centre of trees , and yet the female Ichneumon is able to mark down as her prey , although far out of reach of any sense possessed by ourselves , that one species which alone can serve her purpose . As soon as she has located the
exact position of the caterpillar , she unsheathes a long delicate ovipositor , with which she is provided , and drills it right through the intervening solid wood until it pierces the body of the caterpillar ; she then lays an egg down that long tube into its body , and repeats the process two or three times . The caterpillar itself does not appear to feel any inconvenience from this process , and continues to feed and grow larger , but it has the seeds of death within
itself , and the two or three little caterpillars , which hatch out of the eggs of the Ichneumon , are also growing rapidly inside it . At last , when the time comes that the large caterpillar should have been full fed , and it has eaten its way outwards until it rests close under the bark , preparatory to turning into a chrysalis , its enemies finish their destructive
work , and , if the tree is then opened , the empty skin and cartilage skeleton of the large caterpillar is found together with two or three large cocoons ; these cocoons if kept will produce in time specimens of the Ichneumon fly , and these will in their turn go about their murderous work as soon as their proper hunting season comes round again .
This is only an isolated case of thousands of similar occurrences in every locality ; in fact , if you walk along any palings in the country in the early summer , you will see at every few steps the evidence of similar tragedies . Those of you who live in the country must often have seen on palings little heaps containing a dozen or more of ths yellow Microgaster Cocoons , and if these are examined carefully they will be found to be surrounding the skin of a caterpillar . These minute cocoons may be kept under a wine glass ,
and , from each , an Ichneumon lly with its sharp ovipositor will emerge in due time . It is curious what mistakes can be made even by intelligent persons . I have had the skin of the caterpillar and this little heap of yellow Microgaster Cocoons sent me to examine , and have been seriously asked whether this was not a true case of Parthenogenesis , the suggestion being that the caterpillar had actually laid eggs , instead of waiting until it had become a moth , and that its efforts to alter the course of nature had been too much for its constitution , and it had died in the act .
There are other illustrations I should like to have given but time will not permit ; the most remarkable being , perhaps , Ihe knowledge a Queen Bee possesses of the proximity of another Queen , even when that other is still in the pupa state , sealed up in a waxen cell . I have made numerous experiments with queens of the common black English bee ( Apis Mellifica ' and also the yellow-stripped Italian bee ( Apis ligustica ) which belongs to
the same order ( Hymenoptera ) as the Ichneumon flies and the same marvellous sense of life appreciating life at a distance and through solid matter , is experienced . What then is this marvellous force Animal Lifel We feel that it is not the same as our innocent self , it does not enable us to control our passions , on the contrary it feeds those passions ; it does not endue us with the feeling of moral responsibility , on the contrary it wars against
restraint ; it does not contain that divine germ which we feel at times impelling us , in spite of ourselves , to thoughts and aspirations so far above all material objects that even our corporeal senses shudder at the knowledge we seem to get , at those intervals , of the infinities of perfection which we know to be the very attributes of the Godhead . Animal Life is not then the Siimmum
boniim , it is not perfection , the Beauty of my subject , it is not Eternal Life ; can we then carry our subject any further ? Can we with our finite senses and by means of analogy in the Physical Sciences , get any nearer to the understanding of that marvellous infinity the ¦ Kno-oledgi 1 of God which we are told by Christ is " Life Eternal . " ( . )
In the series of Hidden Mysteries I have laid bsforeyou ^ during my year year of office , I have tried to lead you to the contemplation of this , the last , and indeed , the greatest mystery which surrounds us in our earthly pilgrimage . If I have been successful in my endeavours , I may now attempt to lay before you some thoughts by which we may , perhaps , get a clearer idea of even this great marvel .
Animal life , vegetable life , chemical action , electricity , light , and material vibrations , are then , purely mundane , they will disappear when the fiat of the Deity is withdrawn and matter ceasas to exist , they are forces acting under finite conditions , and are only appreciated by us under the finite conceptions of time and space . They are the result , however , of the will of the Deity , the materialisation of His thoughts , and we have examined
them for the purpose of trying to gain thereby , though only " as through a glass , darkly , " a knowledge of the Creator . Once more , then , let us take the highest form of these , namely , " Life , " and again , working upwards , try to take another step forward . Physiology shows us that the human body is kept alive , asa whole , by the continual processof building up fresh tissues and breaking down andcasting off those which have become worn out . Thisis accomplished by means of , and the whole life and heat of the body are dependent upon ,
the blood—hence the general expression " shedding of blood ' is synonymous with the " taking of life . " This blood , though appearing to us as an ordinary fluid , is found on closer examination to be composed of very small living entities completely detached from each other , and each capable of independent motion . In a former treatise ( the Law of Dakhiel , paa * e 106 ) I have already referred to the old Semitic principle that " The life of fie-h lies in the blood "—( Leviticus , xvii ., 2 )—and gave examples , showing that , in the most ancient races , the idea of life and blood were synonymous , thi