i6o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



many points where the natural and mental sciences march upon each 

 other, and together formed, in the measure of the enlarged condition 

 of knowledge, a universitas Uiteraria, as Leibnitz called it in his time. 

 The statues of the two brothers, in whom, by the rarest coincidence, 

 the various faculties of the human mind diverged and were again 

 drawn together, as in a German university, are therefore the most sig- 

 nificant ornament of our edifice, and lend it at once, by a speaking 

 symbolism, the character of a palace of science. The situation of this 

 building, opposite the palace of the ruling house, was a significant 

 mark of the capital of the Hohenzollerns. The Humboldt statues 

 confirm and perfect its significance. As fences and troops guard 

 against marauders by night, so do the spirits of these brothers keep 

 watch against the tricks of blockheads. Where William and Alexan- 

 der von Humboldt are sentries, there will always be the seat of the 

 noblest manly, effort, of free investigation and free teaching. 



SUGGESTIONS ON SOCIAL SUBJECTS. 



PASSAGES SELECTED FROM PitOFESSOK W. G. SUMNEb's NEW BOOK, 

 ENTITLED " WHAT SOCIAL CLASSES OWE TO EACH OTHER." 



IN the introduction to his little volume. Professor Sumner remarks : 

 " During the last ten years I have read a great many books and 

 articles, especially by German writers, in which an attempt has been 

 made to set up * the state ' as an entity, having conscience, power, and 

 will sublimated above human limitations, and as constituting a tutelary 

 genius over us all. I have never been able to find in history or expe- 

 rience anything to fit this concept. I once lived in Germany for two 

 years, but I certainly saw nothing of it there then. Whether the 

 state which Bismarck is molding will fit the notion is at best a mat- 

 ter of faith and hope. My notion of the state has dwindled with 

 growing experience of life. As an abstraction, the state is to me only 

 All-of-us. In practice — that is, when it exercises will or adopts a line 

 of action — it is only a little group of men chosen in a very hap-hazard 

 way by the majority of us to perform certain services for all of us. 

 The majority do not go about their selection very rationally, and they 

 are almost always disappointed by the results of their own operation. 

 Hence * the state,' instead of offering resources of wisdom, right rea- 

 son, and pure moral sense, beyond what the average of us possess, 

 generally offers much less of all these things. Furthermore, it often 

 turns out in practice that ' the state ' is not even the known and ac- 

 credited servants of the state, but, as has been well said, is only some 

 obscure clerk hidden in the recesses of a government bureau into whose 

 power the chance has fallen for the moment to pull one of the stops 



