18 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



and historical significance of which can only be understood by 

 consulting Euler's "Theoria Motus Corporum Solidorum." Tech- 

 nically, the humanist is not necessarily humane, though for- 

 tunately for the rest of us he generally possesses this admirable 

 quality; he needs only to be human. The distinction is well 

 illustrated at one extreme by what Greg called the ''false 

 morality of lady novelists," which could doubtless be surpassed 

 b}^ the falser morality of male authors of fiction; and at another 

 extreme by the merciful role of the physician in saving lives, 

 or the equall}^ merciful role of the engineer who builds bridges 

 that will not fall down and kill folks, whose works, nevertheless, 

 are often relegated bj^ the humanist to the limbo of technology. 



But these finer shades of verbal distinction which, with more 

 or less elaboration, have come down to plague us from the days 

 of the illustrious Alcuin and Erasmus, but with no such intent on 

 their part, are less disconcerting than other revelations supplied 

 by this expert testimony. It shows, in the second place, the sur- 

 prising fact that some few humanists would restrict this field of 

 endeavor to literature alone. From this minimum minimorum 

 of content the estimates of our esteemed correspondents vary with 

 many fluctuations all the way up to a maximum maximorum 

 which would embrace all that is included in the comprehensive 

 definition of anthropology to be found in the Standard Dictionary. 

 Thus some eminent authorities would exclude from the human- 

 ities all of the ancient classics even, except their literatures. To 

 such devotees philology, literary or comparative, has no interest; 

 while archeology, classical or cosmopolitan, is of no more concern 

 to them than comparative anatomy, which latter, by the way, is 

 held in certain quarters to comprise the whole of anthropology. 

 Equally confident groups of enthusiasts, on the other hand, 

 animated by visions held essential to prevent our race from 

 perishing, would, each in its own way, have the Institution set up 

 boundaries to knowledge within which the humanities, as always 

 hitherto, would play the dominant part but whose appropriate- 

 ness of fixation would be immediately disputed by other groups. 

 There would be, in fact, only one point of agreement between 

 them, namely, that the Institution's income is none too large to 

 meet the needs of any group. It should be observed in passing, 

 however, in fairness to our friends the humanists, that they are 

 not alone in their regressive efforts to estabUsh metes and bounds 



