Jan. 28, 1886] 



NA TURE 



505 



to have escaped all the dangers that beset him in the Congo 

 region, and to be on his way back to Europe. 



With the beginning of next month a party organised by the 

 German New Guinea Association will start from Hamburg. 

 The command of the expedition has been intrusted to Dr. 

 Schraber, one of the staff of the Hamburg Observatory, who 

 was chief of the scientific expedition sent in 1S82 to the southern 

 hemisphere. The preparations are almost completed. Six ex- 

 perienced foresters have been already sent on in advance. 

 Fifteen block-houses have been constructed, some at Hamburg, 

 some in Norway, to be put together at chosen points in New 

 Guinea. Forty Malays have been hired in Java to act as 

 bearers and servants, and five persons trained in various 

 branches of natural science will form the staff of the party. 

 Their explorations will be confined to the portion of the island 

 which is under the German protectorate, and will, it is 

 expected, occupy about three years. 



The Milan Society for the commercial exploration of Africa 

 is preparing a new expedition to Zeila and the neighbouring 

 districts. It will be led by Count Peter Porro. 



The census returns of the provinces of Bosnia and Herzego- 

 vina for 1S85 show an increase of 15 per cent, in the population 

 since the previous returns for 1S79, the respective figures being 

 1,158,440 and 1,336,101. Nearly all the inhabitants are of 

 South Slavonic (Servo-Croatian) stock and speech, and, accord- 

 ing to religions, they were distributed in 1SS5 as follows : — 

 Musstdmans, 492,710; Orthodox Greeks, 571,250; Roman 

 Catholics (Greek and Latin rites), 265, 78S ; Jews, 5805 ; Mis- 

 cellaneous, 548. 



The Viennese firm of Hartleben has begun the publication 

 of Dr. F. Umlauft's important work on the Alps, entitled 

 " Manual of Alpine Sciences." It will be issued In fifteen 

 parts. 



Father Leo M. Alishan, of the Armenian Mekhitarist 

 Congregation of St. Lazarus near Venice, has recently published 

 a sumptuovis work entitled " Sissuan," the term applied by the 

 Armenians to the province of Kilikia at the end of the twelfth 

 century, when it was governei by Leo the Magnificent. The 

 work deals with the physical geography, history, and literature 

 of this region of Asia Minor, and contains numeioiis maps, 

 fac-similes, and illustrations, besides several valuable unedited 

 documents. 



The BoUettino of the Italian Geographical Society for De- 

 cember has a short obituary notice of the distinguished geo- 

 grapher and geologist. Prof. Giuseppe Ponzi, who was born in 

 Rome in 1805, and died there on November 30, 1885. He filled 

 the Chair of Geol igy in the Roman University since the year 

 l865, and on his careful surveys of the basin of the Tiber were 

 based tlie first geological maps of that district. 



The sa ne BoUettino contains some particulars of the Capucci- 

 Cicognani Expedition, which arrived .at the capital of the Anfari 

 (Sultan) of Aussa at the end of August. Here it was detained 

 by the Anfari, who demanded 3000 dollars for the right of pas- 

 sage, and after tedious negotiations Capucci returned to Assab in 

 order to procure this sum, and thus obtain permission to pass on 

 to the kingdom of Shoa in Southern Abyssinia. On his re'urn he 

 induced the Anfari to accept less than half the amount claimed, 

 on payment of which the Expedition continued its journey 

 through Gafra for Shoa. 



To the BolUtliiio Count A. Salimbeni sends a description, 

 with illustration, of the bridge he has now completed over the 

 Temcha, a river in Gojam, which flows through the Birr to the 

 Abai (Bahrel-Azrag, or Blue Nile). The bridge, the first con- 

 structed in Abyssinia since the time of the Portuguese, spans the 

 river with three arches of 8'5 ) metres each, is 4 metres wide, 

 and has a total length of 38 me res. 'Jhe work, which was begun 

 in December 1884 and finished the following March, is looked 

 on as a marvel by the natives, and has given great satisfaction to 

 King John. 



THE BENEFITS WHICH SOCIETY DERIVES 



FROM UNIVERSITIES^ 

 IVTEXT, I mention as the subject for university study, Psycho- 

 logy, the nature of man's soul, the characteristics of his mental 

 and moral activity. This science has lately made great progress, 



■ An Address by D. C. Giltr 

 Continued from p. 283. 



n, President of the Johns Hopkins Un 



— it has improved its methods and enlarged its scope. Those who 

 are devoted to it appreciate the inherited experiences of the 

 human race and are not indifferent to the lessons which may 

 proceed from intuition and introspection ; they study all the 

 manifestations of intellectual and spiritual life ; but, on the other 

 hand, they are not afraid to inquire, and they know how to 

 inquire, into the physical conditions under which the mind works ; 

 they watch the spontaneous, unconventional actions of children -y 

 they investigate the laws of heredity ; they exariiine with 

 curious gaze the eccentricities of genius, and with discerning, 

 often with remedial eye, the alienation of human powers, and 

 they believe that by a combination of these and other methods 

 of research, among which experiment has its legitimate place, 

 the conduct of the human understanding and the laws of pro- 

 gressive morality will be better understood, so that more whole- 

 some methods of education will be employed in schools of every 

 grade. They acknowledge the superiority of the soul to the 

 body, and they stand in awe before the mysteries which are as 

 Impenetrable to modern investigators as they were to Leibnitz 

 and Spinoza, to Abelard and Aquinas, to Aristotle and Plato, 

 the mysteries of man's conscious responsibility, his intimations 

 of immortality, his relations to the Infinite. 



I do not know whether philosophy is on a " return to Kant," 

 or to comiTion sense, but I believe that standing firm on the 

 postulates, God, Soul, and Immortality, it will in years to come 

 disentangle many perplexities, brush away heaps of verbal accu- 

 mulations, and lead the mind to purer and nobler conceptions of 

 righteousness and duty. I go even farther, and, as I believe 

 that one truth is never in conflict with another truth, so I believe 

 that the ethics of the New Testament will be accepted by the 

 scientific as well as the religious faculities of man ; to the former, 

 as Law ; to the latter, as Gospel. 



In confirmation of these views, let me quote to you the 

 language of that one among us who is best qualified to speak 

 upon this subject. 



" The new psychology, which brings simply a new method 

 and a new standpoint to philosophy, is, I believe, Christian to 

 its root and centre ; and its final mission in the world is not 

 merely to trace petty harmonies and small adjustments between 

 science and religion, but to flood and transfuse the new and 

 vaster conceptions of the universe and of man's place in it — now 

 slowly taking form and giving to reason a new cosmos and in- 

 volving momentous and far-reaching practical and social conse- 

 quences — with the old scriptural sense of unity, rationality, and 

 loTe beneath and above all, with all its wide consequences. 

 The Bible is being slowly re-revealed as man's great text-book in 

 psycholor;y, dealing with him as a whole, his body, mind, and 

 will, in all the larger relations to nature anf society, which has 

 been so misappreciated simply because it is s 3 deeply divine.^ 

 That something may be done here to aid this development," 

 continues the lecturer, " is my strongest hope and belief." 



The study of Society engages the earnest interest of another 

 set of men, and the apparatus of their laboratory includes 

 archaeological and historical memorials of the activity of the 

 race. Tiie domain of history and political science has never 

 been cultivated as it is in modern times. The discovery of 

 prima'val monuments and the interpretation of long hidden in- 

 scriptions, the publication of ancient documents once hidden in 

 monasteries and governmental archives, the inquiry into primitive 

 forms of social organisation, the development of improved modes 

 of research, the scientific collection and classification of facts 

 which illustrate the condition of ancient and modern communities 

 and especially the interest awakened in the growth of institutions 

 and constitutions, give to this oldest of studies the freshest 

 interest. Tapers which ha\-e lately been printed on rudimentary 

 society among boys, on the laws of the mining camp, on the 

 foundations of a socialist community, on the differences between 

 parliamentary and congressional government, on the derivation 

 of modern customs from the ancient beginnings of the Aryan 

 people, on the nature of communi-m and many more such 

 themes, afford illustrations of the mode in which the historical 

 student among us, following the lines of Stubbs, Maine, Freeman, 

 Seeley, Bluntschli, Roscher, and other celebrated workers, are 

 advancing historical science, and developing the true historical 

 spirit. The aim of all these inquiries is to help on the progress 

 of modern society by showing how the fetters which now bind us 

 were forged, by what patient filing they must be severed, and at 

 the same time to work out the ideal of a society in which Liberty 

 is everywhere, but " Liberty sustained by Law." 



Languages and Literature have ah\ ays received attention in 

 universities, and will always be dominant for reasons which are 



