406 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



help along the study of natural history, you 

 may say that I can furnish any reasonable 

 number at a cost of, say, two cents each, 

 which I would have to pay boys for collect- 

 Yours truly, 



E. A. Gastman, 



Superintendent of Schools. 



Deoatue, Illinois, May 18, 18S0. 



in 



ANIMAL AFFECTION. 

 Messrs. Editors. 



A story recently related to me regard- 

 ing a remarkable display of affection in a 

 pet monkey is so similar to one which I 

 have just read in " The Popular Science 

 Monthly " for March, that I am induced to 

 send it to you as corroborative of the truth 

 or probability of the latter. 



An officer of the United States Revenue 

 Marine Service, and now upon this station, 

 informs me that several years ago he owned 



a monkey which was very intelligent, and 

 became exceedingly fond of him. Return- 

 ing home one day after a brief absence, the 

 officer saw that the monkey was unwell, 

 but could not account for its illness. It 

 seemed to be in great suffering, but at the 

 same time showed its joy at seeing his mas- 

 ter. The latter raised him in his arms, and 

 the monkey, taking him by each of his 

 whiskers, looked into the face of his human 

 friend and kissed him two or three times. 

 After he had done this, the monkey fell 

 back and died almost immediately. 



It is reasonable to suppose that the ani- 

 mal had some knowledge of his approach- 

 ing end, and intended his embrace as a final 

 farewell to his master. The subject of the 

 intellectual capacities of animals is too large 

 a one for the limits of this letter ; I will, 

 therefore, do no more than call your atten- 

 tion to this instance of almost human feel- 

 ing. E. H. N. 



Poet Townsend, Washington Teeeitoey, 

 May 8, 18S0. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



GOETHE AND THE ARTISTIC STUDY OF 

 NATURE. 



aOETHE, the German poet, was 

 the author of a work, in two 

 volumes with an atlas, on the subject 

 of colors, in which he put forth an 

 elaborate theory of his own upon that 

 subject. It appears that fragments only 

 of this treatise have been translated 

 into English, and, as its views have 

 never attracted much attention or be- 

 come generally known, Professor Tyn- 

 dall has done well in recently devoting a 

 lecture to an account of them. We 

 print this admirable address, which our 

 readers will be sure to find entertaining 

 and instructive. For, though the doc- 

 trines put forth by Goethe on chro- 

 matics are not in themselves important 

 and have no rank as contributions to 

 the science of color, yet they have an 

 interest as the products of a genius 

 now everywhere confessed, though as 

 yet but imperfectly interpreted by the 

 critics. That he was a man of a many- 

 sided nature, of perfected culture, and 

 in various lines of a lucid insight, is 



not to be denied ; and these traits give 

 great importance to the problem of the 

 workings of his mind in whatever di- 

 rection it was systematically exercised. 

 The poet Bayard Taylor, the successful 

 translator of "Faust," declared that he 

 considered Goethe "to have had the 

 most grandly-proportioned and full- 

 orbed intellect that has yet appeared 

 among men " ; but Professor Tyndall is 

 inclined to rank him, on the contrary, 

 among those who may be described as 

 mental "hemispheres; or, at least, 

 spheres with a segment sliced away 

 full-orbed on one side, but flat upon the 

 other." In what this incompleteness 

 consisted is clearly shown in Professor 

 Tyndall's address. Goethe's mental pre- 

 eminence was on the aesthetic, imagina- 

 tive, and literary side, and this so pre- 

 dominated as to disqualify him from 

 entering into the true scientific method 

 of the study of Nature. He held to the 

 competency of poetic and artistic insight 

 alone to discern the truth in natural 

 things ; he tried it, and achieved a par- 

 tial success, which naturally confirmed 



