574 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LI. No. 1327 



One of these fundamental types unexpeotedly 

 proves to be Negrito; the other two most impor- 

 tant ones being Negroid and Malayoid. The 

 Negrito and Negroid types being marginal in their 

 distr^ibution, aie probably the older. 



The Zoroastrian doctrine of the freedom of the 

 will: A. V. "Williams Jackson, professor of Indo- 

 ^ranian languages, Columbia University. The pur- 

 pose of this paper was to show the signflcance of 

 the doctrine of the freedom of the will in the 

 dualistie creed of Zoroaster more than two thou- 

 sand five hundred years ago. The warring king- 

 doms of good and evil, light and darfcness, per- 

 sonified as Ormazd and Ahriman, the ancient Per- 

 sian god and devil, are in perpetual conflict, ac- 

 cording to Zoroaster's philosophic teachings. 

 While these two antagonistic principles, which 

 struggle for the soul of man, are primeval and 

 coeval, they are not coeternal, because Ormazd will 

 triumph in the end and Ahriman will be annihi- 

 lated. Man will help in bringing about the vic- 

 tory. Man is Ormazd 's creature and belongs by 

 birthright to the kingdom of good. He is created, 

 however, a free agent, with the power of will to 

 choose right or wrong. By the universal choice of 

 right he will contribute his share towards the ulti- 

 mate triumph of the hosts of heaven over the le- 

 gions of hell at the final judgment day, and will 

 win sailvation for his soul. It was Zoroaster 's mis- 

 sion in the world to guide man to make the right 

 choice. , Passages from the ancient Avestan and 

 PaWavi texts relating to the subject were trans- 

 lated, and emphasis was laid upon the interest 

 which this old Zoroastrian doctrine in regard to 

 the freedom of the will has for students of philos- 

 ophy and religion. 



The Hittite civilization: Morris Jastrow, Jr., 

 Ph.D., LL.D., professor of Semitic languages. 

 University of Pennsylvania. During the last four 

 decades the discoveries and excavations in northern 

 Asia Minor have brought the Hittite problem into 

 the foreground of Oriental archeology. The no- 

 tices about the Hittite groups found in the Old 

 Testament and in the inscriptions of Egypt and 

 Assyria have been supplemented by an abundance 

 of material now at the disposal of scholars, though 

 this can not be fully utilized until the large quan- 

 tity of inscriptions in the Hittite characters have 

 been satisfactorily deciphered. Even without this 

 decipherment the monuments themselves tell us 

 much of the important part played by the Hittites 

 during the second millenium before this era in the 

 andient East. They seem to have been composed of 



a conglomeration of various ethnic elements and 

 about 1500 B.C. a strong Hittite empire was lo- 

 cated in northern Asia Minor which was powerful 

 enough to threaten both Egypt, on the one side, 

 and Babylonia and Assyria, on the other. These 

 Hittites moving along the historical highway across 

 Asia Minor left their rock monuments and their 

 fortresses as traces of the power and civilization 

 which they developed. Their contact with Assyria 

 appears to have been particularly close and it is 

 not impossible that the earliest rulers were actually 

 Hittites. We find that at one time they extended 

 far into Palestine. The "sons of Heth" associ- 

 ated in tradition with Abraham are Hittites and 

 .there were Hittite generals in the army of the 

 Jewish kings. The introduction of cuneiform 

 writing among the Hittites to replace their more 

 cumbersome script is in itself an important indi- 

 cation of the close contact with Babylonian-Assy- 

 rian civilization as it also furnishes a definite basis 

 upon which the decipherment of the Hittite lan- 

 guage becomes a definite possibility. 



The decipherment of the Hittite languages: 

 Maurice Bloompield, L.H.D., LL.D., professor of 

 Sanskrit and comparative philology, Johns Hop- 

 kins University. 



The beginning of the fourth gospel: Paul 

 Haupt, Ph.D., LL.D., professor of Semitic lan- 

 ^ages, Johns Hopkins University. John i. 1, 

 should be translated : In the beginning was Reason. 

 Greek ' ' logos ' ' denotes both ' ' word ' ' and ' ' rea- 

 son. ' ' Logic is the science of reasoning. Accord- 

 ing to the Stoics, Keason (Greek Logos) was the 

 active principle in the formation of the universe. 

 We find stoic phraseology not only in the New 

 Testament, but also in the Old Testament. The 

 most valuable lessons of Stoicism were preserved 

 in Christianity. Arthur W. Goodspeed 



(To he continued) 



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A Weekly JoumtJ devoted to the Advaacement of 

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