POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



141 



independent branches of science. His ex- 

 ample was operative everywhere, as that of 

 one of the moat self-active masters in the 

 shop. He has been called vain and selfish ; 

 but his vanity was never so strong as to 

 overcome his love of the truth, and his self- 

 ishness never prevented his fostering all 

 budding talent and joyfully greeting every 

 advance in knowledge. Ho refused high 

 positions, so strongly was his innate incli- 

 nation turned toward the advancement of 

 knowledge. Long after he had become one 

 of the recognized teachers of mankind, he 

 did not cease to learn ; but he learned as an 

 investigator learns ; and, even as against 

 the most adept, he never gave up the right 

 of testing by his own proofs. It was thus 

 that we learned to know Alexander von 

 Humboldt. His frame was bent under the 

 burden of years and labors, but his spirit 

 was high-set, and his eyes still looked clear- 

 ly into the world. He was valuable to us 

 as one who had the highest knowledge, and 

 was at the same time perfectly discreet, as 

 a high-priest of truth and humanity, as a 

 true friend of civic freedom. Feeling this? 

 we have erected his monument. May it be 

 a symbol to many generations of the efforts 

 of this age ! " 



The Physicians' Part in Evolntion.— The 



" Lancet " has been asked, " Why, if it be 

 natural and expedient that only the ' fittest ' 

 should survive, are we [the medical men] as 

 a profession chiefly interested in prolonging 

 the lives of those who have been rendered 

 unfit by disease or accident ? " It admits 

 that, " if it were really a fact that the whole 

 business of our lives, the work to which we 

 devote the best of our strength and intelli- 

 gence, had for its object to antagonize the 

 natural course of progress as regards the 

 race, although compassion for the individual 

 might impel us to continue the effort, it 

 would certainly damp the ardor of our en- 

 terprise to reflect that those we are striving 

 to keep alive ought in the interests of pos- 

 terity to be left to die." The seeming par- 

 adox the " Lancet " reasons is, however, in 

 truth a fallacy. It is founded on an imper- 

 fect view of the inter-relations of the world. 

 •' Survival of the fittest " is not the same 

 thing in its result as " adaptation to circum- 

 stances." Development, through and by the 



environment, is the method of Nature, but 

 this does not necessitate that man should 

 be the creature of circumstances. The en- 

 vironment is not a constantly progressive 

 agency of development. It is itself subject 

 to the law of survival. It can not, therefore, 

 be absolutely or abstractly true that the 

 fittest for the existing conditions of life in 

 any particular place or epoch ought to 8ur« 

 vive. It is wholly out of our power to de- 

 termine whether the particular type of de- 

 velopment which seems to be making its 

 way in the world and asserting its superi- 

 ority by survival, and is for a time regarded 

 as normal, is the best type, or that which is 

 destined to endure and be perfected. The 

 surroundings of life are progressively chang- 

 ing as well as the subjects of life. There is 

 a perpetual struggle for supremacy between 

 the two, and it is always an open question 

 whether the resultant of this struggle will 

 be found to embody a greater or less modi- 

 fication of subject or circumstance. " Our 

 duty as practitioners of the art of healing 

 does not relate to the surroundings, except 

 in so far as these may be regarded a tribu- 

 tary to the central fact of life. If we can 

 modify the conditions and circumstances of 

 existence so as to render life easier, it is in 

 our day's work to do this, and to do it 

 heartily ; but the commission we hold is to 

 prolong life, and to fight against all that 

 tends to destroy or weaken it. In so doing, 

 we are not merely benefiting the individual, 

 but the race, because, so far as we know, 

 man is the highest created organism, and as 

 such he is destined to dominate circum- 

 stances. For us ' man ' takes the fonn of 

 men. The race may be higher than the in- 

 dividual, but it is with the latter we have to 

 deal." 



Ancient and Modern Egyptian Schools 

 and Libraries. — Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole 

 has attempted to trace an historical connec- 

 tion between the ancient Egyptian schools 

 and library at Heliopolis and the Alexan- 

 drian Library and University, and even the 

 present Moslem University at Cairo. The 

 sources of information respecting the an- 

 cient schools are chiefly old hieratic papyri, 

 some of which were actually exercise-books 

 of students, and they tell us of temples at- 

 tached to colleges in various large towns. 



