January 30, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



117 



estimates the value of those linguistic studies 

 pursued in his youth that gave to him a 

 power to use language clearly and forcibly 

 which it would have been difficult to acquire 

 in any other way. 



In the further discussion of language it is 

 pointed out that the content of words which 

 have grown up in the usual manner, through 

 long use, is often vague. This and other con- 

 siderations lead the author to advocate the 

 use of an artificial, general language with 

 accurately defined words. Such a point of 

 view overlooks the fact that many of the 

 words of our mother tongue carry in them- 

 selves delicate shades of meaning which 

 represent our memory of their use in a great 

 variety of connections. Such words can not 

 be successfully replaced by words of a foreign 

 tongue, still less by the words of an artificial 



In classifying the sciences the simplest and 

 most general ideas came first. These embrace 

 logic or relationships, mathematics, or num- 

 bers, order, form and quantity, and the 

 science of time, for which there is no dis- 

 tinctive name. The second division, energet- 

 ical sciences, includes mechanics, physics and 

 chemistry. These use the concepts and prin- 

 ciples of the fijst division while the sciences 

 of the first division are, in an important sense, 

 independent of either of the others. The 

 third division, the biological sciences, is 

 divided into physiology, psychology and 

 " culturology." 



Thus far the divisions of human knowledge 

 and the pedagogical sequences based upon 

 them may be accepted as useful and there is 

 very much of sound common sense in the 

 discussion. But very many will object to the 

 complete omission of any direct reference to 

 moral and religious education, and to his 

 treatment of the child as merely an " energet- 

 ical machine" (p. 202). On p. 120 the 

 author says ; " We shall renoimce in any sci- 

 entific system the consideration of all super- 

 natural relationships of whatever nature, and, 

 on the other hand, we shall extend our scien- 

 tific problems to each and every field of 

 human experience." If by " supernatural re- 



lationships " is meant some one who inter- 

 feres occasionally and irregularly and capri- 

 ciously in human affairs, the large majority 

 of scientific men will agree. But if Professor 

 Ostwald means that there is no "Power not 

 ourselves which makes for righteousness " 

 many of the leaders both in England and in 

 America will dissent most strongly. In re- 

 membrance of the bitter controversies of the 

 past, we are wont to be very silent about 

 questions of this kind, but to very many it is 

 simply unthinkable that the orderly universe 

 in which we fijid ourselves is merely the blind 

 resultant of the interaction of matter and 

 energy without some intelligence which is in 

 and through it all. 



Somewhat related to his philosophy is Pro- 

 fessor Ostwald's statement (p. 206) of "the 

 most general problem of every human life" 

 as " the attainment of happiness." He re- 

 calls his former conclusion that " the most 

 important requisites for happiness are, first, 

 the greatest possible amount of completely 

 transformable free energy, and, secondly, the 

 greatest possible amount of energy trans- 

 formed voluntarily." It is very interesting to 

 notice the naivete of the last phrase. Any- 

 thing done " voluntarily " is either a self- 

 deception or it is in flat contradiction with a 

 materialistic or mechanistic philosophy. But 

 there is no mechanistic philosopher who does 

 not act as though he considers himself, prac- 

 tically, a free agent. 



The definition of the conditions of happi- 

 ness is incomplete in a still more important 

 respect. It overlooks the fact that in matters 

 of happiness "he that saveth his life shall 

 lose it." Happiness is not found best by seek- 

 ing it directly. "We condemn and despise the 

 man who makes his own personal happiness or 

 even the personal advantage of his family the 

 supreme object of his life. The great men of 

 the world have risen far above such consider- 

 ations. The time is coming when the class, 

 or community or nation which considers its 

 own advantage as paramount to that of all 

 others will also be condemned. Indeed, the 

 execration which Germany has brought upon 

 herself from the whole world was chiefly due 



