226 TRANS. OF THE ACAD. OP SCIENCE. 



von Liebig ; Rede 28 Nov., 1861, von Dr. J. H. Plath ; Zum Gedaehtniss 

 ;m Jean Baptiste Biot (28 Marz, 1862) von C. F. P. von Martius ; Parthe- 

 nogenesis Vortrag (an 28 Marz, 1862_) von Dr. C. Th. F. von Siebold — 

 from the Royal Academy. 



Mr. Holmes called the attention of members to a paper of Prof. Pliny 

 Earle Chase, contained in the Transactions of the Amor. Phil. Society 

 (Vol. XII., Pt. iii.), laid upon the table this evening, entitled " Intellect- 

 ual Symbolism : A Basis of Science." He thought it a very important 

 contribution to metaphysical science. It attempted to find a kind of alge- 

 braic symbolism for the expression of the faculties and powers of the mind 

 and their relations to one another, indicating by letters as symbols the 

 broadest possible generalizations. The author claims to have been the 

 first to point out Place (for which he uses the term Position) as being 

 (together with Time and Space) the third relation of Form, and a neces- 

 sary condition of the existence of form, whether of body or thing in na- 

 ture, or of idea or conception in the mind, and as furnishing a proof that 

 Nature itself is a subjective product. But, like most writers on the sub- 

 ject, the author appeared to use the terms Time and Space (as well as 

 Position) in both an infinite and a finite sense. In this, he thought there 

 was error and a source of confusion, and he would submit his own views 

 as follows : 



1. Eternity consists merely in the possibility of time, or times in suc- 

 cession. 



2. Immensity consists merely in the possibility of space, or spaces in 

 succession. 



3. Infinity (in reference to Time, Space, and Position) consists merely 

 in the endless possibility of Times, Spaces, and Places. 



4. Eternity, Immensity, Infinity, can be predicated of the Absolute 

 Mind only, conceived as Thinking Power, and only as possibilities of such 

 thinking existence. 



5. Time, Space, and Position, are in themselves merely necessary laws 

 of all possible thinking, divine or human, giving the forms of ideas, con- 

 ceptions, things, or acts, and the place and the correlation of places of 

 the things created. 



6. Position (or rather mathematical point) may express the exact point 

 of beginning of creation of an idea, conception, thing, or act, where the 

 finite begins to be bounded out of the infinite into time, space, and place, 

 which are always finite. 



7. Personality may be conceived as constituted in the totality of the 

 thinking subject; but neither Time, Space, nor Position, can be at all 

 predicated of the absolute thinking subject (the Divine Mind) otherwise 

 than as such laws of thought, and only of the finite thinking person, when 

 considered as an individual physical object, or as a specialized and limited 

 metaphysical subject. 



8. To employ the terms time, space, position, in any sense of infinity, as 

 to say infinite time, infinite space, infinite position, is simply an irrational 

 and absurd use of words. 



Dr. Shumard presented from Major F. Hawn a paper, 

 entitled "Surface Geology in Kansas." Referred to a com- 

 mittee. 



Dr. Engelmann communicated some meteorological obser- 

 vations which he had received from F. M. Case, Surveyor 

 General of Colorado Territory, made by him at Denver City 

 (lining last January. 



He said, the striking feature in the meteorology of that place, as de- 

 veloped in the tables (and, no doubt, of the whole region at the eastern 

 base of the liocky Mountains), is, that the changes of temperature are 



