Z82 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



of rigid demonstration, but rests at bottom 

 upon assumptions whose truth must be 

 taken simply upon trust. All scientific 

 proof is really based upon the single hy- 

 pothesis of the uniformity of nature a doc- 

 trine which can never be demonstratively 

 established, but of which the highest and 

 strongest proof is, and always must be, 

 merely cumulative. The evidence for this 

 hypothesis rests upon our experience, and 

 that is of a limited character. Thus, the 

 foundation of our knowledge is an assump- 

 tion, which, though highly probable, can not 

 be proved. " And yet we believe : our con- 

 viction is so perfect that, even if exact and 

 rigid demonstration were possible, it would 

 add not one particle to the positiveness of 

 our conviction. The fact remains, then, 

 that we believe that which we can not 

 prove. The scientist, no less than the theo- 

 logian, rests his conclusions ultimately upon 

 faith. When reason halts, faith steps in 

 and leads us onward, and upon the basis 

 of faith our most certain conclusions are 

 founded." Reason, indeed, is our guide ; 

 but faith that faith which, resting upon 

 experience, nevertheless transcends expe- 

 rience must be the rod and staff on which 

 we lean. The greatest debt we owe to Sci- 

 ence, Professor DuBois concludes, " apart 

 from all she has done and is doing for our 

 bodily comfort and our mental development, 

 is for the lesson of faith she is thus ever 

 teaching us the lesson that Reason and 



Faith must ever go hand in hand 



that 



man can never feel sure of attaining abso- 

 lute knowledge that pure truth is not for 

 him ; that just so surely as he walks by 

 reason and by reason only, just so surely 

 he must reach a point where reason halts 

 and waits on faith." 



Baron Sfjprstedt's Antique Coins. 

 Baron A. W. Stjerstedt, who died in Sep- 

 tember, 1880, was one of the most distin- 

 guished numismatists in Sweden, and in 

 1857 received the grand prize of the Royal 

 Academy of Archaeology of that country for 

 his work on the copper coinage of Sweden 

 and its foreign possessions. lie was the 

 author of other numismatic works, and 

 formed extensive collections of Swedish and 

 of antique coins. The latter collection is 

 one of unusual interest and value, not less 



for its completeness than for the length 

 of time and the extent of territory it rep- 

 resents. Its chronological range is from 

 about 800 b. c. to the reigns of Theodore 

 II of Constantinople, and Manuel Comnenus 

 of Trcbizond, in the thirteenth century of 

 the Christian era. Its geographical range 

 comprises nearly all of the world with which 

 the Greeks and Romans were in actual con- 

 tact. Its historical continuity, although, 

 perhaps, not unbroken, is marred by few 

 extensive or important gaps. The depart- 

 ment of Grecian medals includes the muni- 

 cipal, popular, or royal coins of cities, prov- 

 inces, and states in ancient Lusitania (or 

 Portugal), Spain, Gaul, Italy, Sarmatia, Mce- 

 sia, Thrace, Macedonia, Greece, the states 

 of Asia Minor, Syria, Phoenicia, the Parthian 

 kings, Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, Nu- 

 midia and Mauritania, nearly a thousand 

 examples in all. In the Roman department 

 are found four pieces described as " autono- 

 mous coins of Rome," consular medals, and 

 imperial medals from Julius Csesar to Julius 

 Nepos, a. d. 475 ; while in the Byzantine 

 department are placed the coins of the East- 

 ern emperors, from Arcadius to Manuel 

 making, with a few Gothic and Vandal coins 

 and odd pieces, 2,467 coins of Rome and its 

 Eastern Empire. Ordinary collections are 

 of value as curiosities or for the illustrative 

 specimens they afford. So comprehensive a 

 collection as that of Baron Stjerstedt may 

 be made useful for instruction in numerous 

 ways. It holds the thread of history with 

 a nearly continuous series of object-lessons, 

 and shows the relations of even the most 

 remote points of Europe in very early times. 

 It illustrates the growth and prevalence of 

 myths, the vicissitudes of dynasties, and 

 changes of religion. Some old Roman coins 

 show Romulus and Remus suckled by the 

 wolf. Emblems of the divine legends of 

 the Greeks and Romans abound in hosts of 

 pieces. Some bear contemporary portraits 

 of men with whose names history is full ; a 

 group for Judea shows pieces of silver of 

 the kind with which Judas was paid for 

 his treachery ; in the series for imperial 

 Rome are shown the growth of Christianity 

 upon paganism, the attempt to supplant it 

 again by pagan rites, and the final triumph 

 of the Christian emblems. In another view, 

 the coins, for the most part still sharp and 



