238 NATURE 
[APRIL 29, 1915 

cultivated in the students. In addition to English 
and French, Spanish and Russian should be taught 
in place of Latin and Greek; for men will be needed 
to go out and discover exactly what is wanted in the 
countries which, after the war, will be opened to our 
trade. These men must be able to talk the language 
of the people whom they are seeking to make their 
clients. The proper use of coal is, in the future, one 
of the great problems which we have to face. No 
bituminous coal should be used directly as fuel; it 
should be first converted at least into soft coke, so 
that the ammonia and tar, which are ordinarily 
wasted, may be recovered and utilised. This is a duty 
we owe to ourselves and to posterity on economic 
grounds, as well as in the interests of agriculture and 
the internal-combustion industry in particular, Our 
future success as a nation will depend on the fruit- 
fulness of our scientific research. The possession of 
enormous organisations such as they have in the 
great chemical works on the Rhine gives the Ger- 
mans very great power. They do not hesitate to 
expend vast sums of money in research; they do not 
think in niggardly terms—as our Government has 
done within the past few weeks—of 10,0001. a year, 
but without hesitation spend 50,00ol. a year on a single 
problem. Thanks to our schools and universities, not 
forgetting the Civil Seryice examiners, the ignorance 
of our commercial community on all matters scientific 
is lamentable in the extreme; whilst owing to a 
literary test only being applied, a specially unpractical 
type of mind has been selected during generations to 
administer our public affairs. 
ALtTHuouGH the wrought flints found in great num- 
bers in Egypt have been discussed in various isolated 
papers, no detailed survey of them has as yet been 
accessible to students. This want is now being sup- 
plied by Prof. Petrie in the first part of an elaborate 
survey of the subject in Ancient Egypt, part ii., for 
1915. Flint-working, he points out, began in archaic 
times, and gradually blossomed out into the grand 
style of the splendid forms characteristic of the Chel- 
lean and Achulean periods, which no later work has 
surpassed. The Mousterian and Aurignacian ages 
reflect the decadence of European man in the third 
glacial period. In this paper the Egyptian and European 
forms of implements are carefully and with abundant 
illustrations correlated. This survey, when complete, 
will be of great value to students of prehistoric anti- 
quities. 
Mr. W. Crooke contributes to part i., vol. xxvi., 
of Folk-lore a paper dealing with the Dasahra, an 
autumn festival of the Hindus. It is held on or 
about the autumnal solstice, and thus coincides with 
the harvesting of the autumn and the sowing of the 
spring crops. It is hence an important crisis in the 
life of the farmer, during which it is necessary to 
control, by means of magical rites, the evil spirits 
which are active at such seasons. It is also the time 
when after the close of the rainy season the roads 
become open, and in older times the warlike classes 
started on their annual raids. Hence it is regarded 
as an auspicious time for the commencement of any 
NO. 2374, VOL. 95] 

work of importance. A curious incident in the ob- 
servances is the release of prisoners or their removal 
from the capital, lest by virtue of a sort of sympathetic 
magic the spiritual activities should be trammelled by 
their bonds or chains. It is thus in its original form 
a complex of animistic or pre-animistic usages, which 
have been worked over by Brahmans or courtiers, 
and have thus become associated with the later Hindu 
pantheon and with the ceremonial of native courts. 
Irv has often been noticed that an interval of time, 
marked off by sounds, appears longer than an equal 
interval marked off by flashes of light. The illusion 
has commonly been attributed to the so-called visual 
after-sensation—the persisteneesof the effect of light 
upon the retina. A recent r rch, carried out in the 
psychological laboratory of thé University of California, 
and reported in the Psychological Review for January, 
1915, shows that when the intervals are very short 
(1 sec. or less) and the stimuli repeated, the rate in the 
sound-series actually appears quicker, as a rule, than 
the rate in the light-series, although the two rates are 
really the same. A sound-rate of 154 taps a minute 
appeared equal to a light-rate of 128 flashes a. minute 
for one observer, and 134 to 150 flashes for others. 
The higher the rate and the longer the series, the 
more marked becomes the illusion. Those exhibit it 
most who depend either upon ‘‘ general impression ”’ 
or upon overt tapping with the hand. 


Tue presidential address delivered by Prof. Tufts at 
the joint meeting of the American and Western Philo- 
sophical Associations had for its subject ‘* The Ethics 
of States.” The address is published in full in the 
Philosophical Review for March. The lover of para- 
dox, says Prof. Tufts, can find no richer field than 
that of the ethics of States. ‘‘The State hales private 
persons before its bar if they violate person or pro- 
perty, brealk contracts, or enslave their fellows; but 
itself commits homicide and trespass, breaks treaties, 
and takes possession against their will of the persons 
and property of multitudes who have done no harm.” 
The article analyses the historical and logical grounds 
for. these paradoxes. Historically, States have been 
built by two great forces: lust for conquest and desire 
of gain. America has learnt the dangers implicit in 
corporations organised for profit when they are not 
themselves controlled. The evils of present inter- 
-national politics are due, not to too much, but to too 
little political organisation. Logically, the doctrine of 
the survival of the fittest should involve the conclusion 
that everything that exists is good—the victor is 
always the better, the king on the throne can never do 
wrong, the martyr on the cross has never been right. 
On the contrary, the article urges that competition 
between nations may be just as unfair and just as 
much in need of higher control as competition be- 
tween individuals or companies in business. It con- 
cludes the present situation is bringing home to all 
nations the consequences of past political ideals in all 
their horror; and that the very appeals which both 
sides make for moral approval are indications of the 
emergence of a larger and higher international 
conscience, 
