84 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Spanish influence was ever felt there. It is found also in sections 

 where the Spaniard did not remain long enough to permanently 

 inject his term agua, or augua, into the dialects of the aborigines. 

 Indeed, no native tribes or peoples have been known on the con- 

 tinent who have readily adopted the tongue or even the general 

 terms of a foreign race. Even the modern Indians have persist- 

 ently rejected the tongue of the European. 



And yet we have such South and Central American names as 

 the following titles that are regarded as native or aboriginal in 

 the modern writings: Ur-augua, Par-augua, Agua-pi, Nicar- 

 agua, Conch-augua, Des-augua-dero ; these and many more 

 showing the same term that is conspicuous in our native Indian 

 appellations, written Wat-auga, Chicam-auga, Canadian-augua, 

 Nottas-augua, Aut-augua, and the like, in North America words 

 that are quite universally regarded as pure aboriginal names, the 

 main term entirely free from the influences of the Caucasian 

 tongue. 



IMMATERIAL SCIENCE. 



BY E. S. MOSER. 



Material View of Life and its Relations to the Spiritual, 

 by Prof. Graham Lusk, Assistant Professor of Physiology, 

 Yale Medical School, in The Popular Science Monthly for August, 

 1893, presents to the mind of a layman a unique combination of 

 facts and fancies, of scientific deductions and metaphysical as- 

 sumptions. The professor's "material view" in the main finds 

 adequate support in the domain of demonstrable knowledge, but 

 his " reasoning " process in support of his spiritual view is dis- 

 tributed over a good deal of imaginative and unknown territory. 

 The professor observes : " Matter is divided into ponderable and 

 imponderable ponderable, that which can be weighed ; imponder- 

 able, that which can not be weighed." Some proof is certainly 

 required in support of this statement. The conventional terms of 

 speech employed in treating of matter admit of a division of 

 matter within certain limitations, to more clearly establish the 

 differences in material forms ; but to boldly imply that a portion 

 of the matter in existence has no weight is imponderable is to 

 challenge the presentation of clearly defined evidence. The pro- 

 fessor may be right, he may be wrong. He may believe he is 

 right, yet belief in the absence of knowledge is mere belief, and 

 one belief in the abstract is of about as much importance as any 

 other belief, however ridiculous. Moreover, to assume to estab- 

 lish the existence of an " ether " as a means of explaining " some- 

 thing otherwise inexplicable/' is a process of reasoning which 



