326 



NATURE 



[November 20, 1919 



verse sets us is an inverse problem. But the two most 

 distinguished philosophers amongst us, starting from the 

 Absolute as their criterion, declare the whole world as 

 we know it, including ourselves, as infected with con- 

 tradictions, which are only resolved in the Absolute. 

 Precisely how resolved we do not know, and never 

 can know. But at least everything is blended and 

 transformed into one perfect experience in which no 

 finite centres of experience as such are respected or 

 retained. Is the Absolute, then, making sport of us, it 

 is asked, since the untransformed, discrepant "appear- 

 ances," it would seem, must ever remain to perplex 

 us? No, it is replied; for those appearances are the 

 Absolute's revelation to us. Moreover, in the unifica- 

 tion of our originally disjointed experiences which 

 underlies all human development, and again in the 

 ever-increasing mutual "transparency" of formally 

 distinct individuals — who are thereby ever more and 

 more enabled to think and feel and act as one — we 

 can see the beginning of the process that in the Abso- 

 ■ lute is eternally accomplished. But, it was rejoined, 

 the progress of knowledge shows no sign of reducing 

 the categories of thought to the mere "adjective" 

 with which, perhaps, it began. Nor does our advance 

 to a higher unity show any tendency to replace 

 stability and originality of character by mere "con- 

 nections of content." In conclusion, it was urged 

 that it is hopeless to attempt to begin frorn the point 

 of view which only a completed philosophy could 

 occupy. To advance continuouslv and be coherent — 

 that should be our golden rule. The whole procedure 

 would be tentative — that must always be the case with 

 inverse problems. Crises, too, there would be again, 

 as in the past ; but such crises, after all, would only 

 be cases of "sloughing an outgrown skin," not of 

 radical disease. Philosophy on the whole had pro- 

 gressed; and so long as it followed the method which 

 Nature herself observes — to make no leaps — whv 

 should it not progress still? 



Mineralogical Society, November 4 (Anniversarv Meet- 

 ing). — Sir William P. Beale, Bart., president, in the chair. 

 —Dr. W. R. Schoeller and A. R. Powell : Villamaninite, 

 ,a new mineral. The new mineral, which occurs, dis- 

 seminated in black grains and plates, with a distinct 

 cleavage, and in small nodules with a radially fibrous 

 structure, in a crystalline dolomite near Villamanin, 

 Cdrmenes district, Le6n province, Spain, has probablv 

 a composition corresponding with (Cu,Ni,Co,Fe){S,Se),". 

 Its streak is sooty-black, hardness 4^, and specific 

 gravity 4-4-4-5 ; it is opaque. — A. Russell : The occur- 

 rence of phenakite and scheelite at Wheal Cork, St. 

 Just, Cornwall. The author found good specimens of 

 these minerals in 1914 at Wheal Cock, which is the 

 locality whence came the crystal (undoubtedly phena- 

 kite) described by Sowerby in 1804 as argilla'electrica 

 or white tourmaline. Phenakite was not known until 

 1833 as a distinct species. — L. J. Spencer : New crvstal- 

 forms on pyrites, calcite, and epidote. On pvrite's the 

 dyakis-dodecahedron (641) occurs as large, well- 

 developed faces on five specimens, one of them from 

 Traversella, Piedmont, and the others from coal- 

 shales of unknown locality. On 424 crystallised speci- 

 mens of pyrites in the British Museum collection, 

 35 crystal-forms were noted. Faces of the cube are 

 present on 766 per cent, of the specimens, the octa- 

 hedron on 627 per cent., the pentagonal-dodecahedron 

 (210) on 547 per cent., and the dvakis-dodecahedron 

 (321) on 361 per cent. As simple forms, not in com- 

 bination with other forms, they are represented by 12, 

 2, 2j, and J per cent, respectively. The decomposition 

 of specimens of pyrites in collections was discussed. 

 Calcite, a clear scalenohedral crystal, probablv from 

 Iceland, consists of a combination of the two scaleno- 

 hedra (201) and (12.0.7), both largely developed, and 

 NO. 2612, VOL. 104] 



with an angle of only 4^° betvi/een corresponding 

 faces. Epidote, a crystal, probably from Ala, Pied- 1 

 mont, closely resembling in appearance the yellow j 

 prismatic crystals of anatase, carries a minute face ' 

 (134) (Dana's orientation) in addition to twentv other 

 crystal-forms. — Dr. G. F. Herbert Smith : A curious 

 crystal from the Binnental. The crystal, which was 

 found with a few loose sartorite crystals in the Trech- 

 mann collection, is twinned and tabular in habit, and i 

 shows signs of corrosion. The symmetry is peculiar, ■■ 

 since, although a face occurs at right angles to the 

 prism edge, it is neither a plane nor a pole of svm- 

 metry, and the crystal appears to represent a new 

 species of sulpharsenite. 



Manchester. 



Literary and Philosophical Society, October 7. Mr. 



Francis Jones, vice-president, in the chair.— Sir 

 Henry A. Miers : The future of the Manchester 

 Literary and Philosophical Society. Attention was 

 especially directed to the urgent need in societies for 

 informal discussions, a work performed by such socie- 

 ties in their pioneer days. With the 'increase of 

 scientific knowledge the tendency has been for scientific 

 people to segregate into special groups. As a result of 

 this, the papers read at modern specialist societies are 

 calculated to appeal only to experts. A reaction is 

 indicated by recent attempts at co-operation between 

 the humanities and sciences. Great work could be 

 done by making the most recent advances in science 

 understood by those who were not experts, and by 

 promoting meetings at which new ideas can be 

 expressed in language intelligible to all. There is 

 danger of a scientific hierarchy, and of a cleavage 

 between specialists and amateurs. Investigators might 

 be encouraged to give popular expositions of their 

 own discoveries to a general audience, in addition to 

 the more severely scientific paper intended for pub- 

 lication. 



Paris. 



Academy ol Sciences, October 27.— M. Lten Guignard 

 in the chair. — C. Moureu and A. Lepape : The 

 stabilisation of acrolein. An empirical method of 

 stabilisation. The crude aldehyde is shaken with 

 10 per cent, of its weight of dry sodium bicarbonate. 

 The acidity is reduced to 5 per cent, of its original 

 value, and the acrolein so produced is practicallv 

 stable. — A. Chatelet ; Hypercomplex numbers with 

 associative and commutative multiplication. — E. T. 

 Bell ; Particular representations by some quadratic 

 forms of Liouville.— P. Chevenard :' The viscositv of 

 steels at high temperatures. A chrome-nickel steel 

 wire was maintained at a constant temperature in an 

 atmosphere of nitrogen, and the elongation under a 

 fixed load measured photographically as a function of 

 the time. — H. Vanderlinden : Observations of Borrelly's 

 comet 1919c. Measurements were made at the Royal 

 Belgian Observatory at Uccle on October 18, 22, and 

 23. On October 22 the comet appeared as a nebulosity 

 of j' diameter. The nucleus was clear, and of magni- 

 tude about 9. — J. Volmat : The application of aerial 

 photography to hydrographic survevs. Photographs 

 from an aeroplane of the sea-floor in the neighbour- 

 hood of Brest proved the great possibilities of this 

 method of marine surveying. SeveraL points of rock 

 which had escaped previous careful surveys were dis- 

 covered with ease. — L. Majorana : Experiments on 

 gravitation. — E. Perucca : Plane waves laterallv in- 

 definite, with pendular vibrations, which reflection and 

 refraction associate with one or two given analogous 

 systems of incident waves. — H. Muraour : The com- 

 parison of explosion temperatures calculated starting 

 from the specific heats with those calculated starting 



