SCIENCE. 
3 at | dic 
sat ey, 
Fray, NovemMper 1, 1918 
CONTENTS 
The Balance, the Steelyard and the Concept 
of Force: Dr. WILLARD J. FISHER ........ 427 
The Scientific Members of the ig Edu- 
WNREUIISE SME SEREII oc wai cl simieiphs, opahv io. «(n,niria piace 433 
William John Keep ..........+. Tee eters 
Scientific Events :— 
Science and Industry in Tasmania; Man- 
ganiferous Ore in Oregon; Exhibit of Min- 
erals useful in War; Library of the Edge- 
wood Arsenal Laboratory; Endowment of 
Engineering Research .......0.+-000s20005 438 
Scientific Notes and News ...........-++++. 442 
University and Educational News .......... 441 
Discussion and Correspondence :— 
The Scientific Name of the Passenger Pig- 
eon: Harry C. OBERHOLSER. Alleged Redis- 
covery of the Passenger Pigeon: JoHN M. 
CiarKE, S. M. Rasmussen. Do we want a 
Great Private Institution for Inventors like 
the Institute of France for Artists? Davip 
Famcump. Circular Frequency: PRoFEssoR 
ARTHUR TABER JONES ......--.-+2-+-0 445 
Scientific Books :— 
Armsby on the Conservation of Food 
Energy: Proressor GRAHAM LUSK ........ 447 
The Flora of North Dakota: O. A. STEVENS. 448 
Special Articles :— 
Pear Blight Wind Borne: Proressor F. L. 
Stevens, W. A. Rut, C. S. SPooNER...... 
MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 
review should be sent to The Editor of Science, Garrison-on- 
Hudson, N. Y. 
THE BALANCE, THE STEELYARD AND 
THE CONCEPT OF FORCE 
THE primitive philosophy of Animism, 
“the doctrine that a great part, if not the 
whole, of the inanimate kingdom, as well as 
all animated beings, are endowed with reason, 
intelligence and volition, identical with that 
of man,” still to a degree sticks in mechanics, 
in the concept of force. Schopenhauer is 
quoted as saying: 
That the essence of forces in inorganic nature 
is identical with the will in us, every one believes 
with full certainty and as a demonstrated truth, 
who seriously considers it. 
R. Eisler says: 
Force is a concept which gets its content orig- 
inally from the capacity of the ego in general by 
means of its will to bring about something, to 
overcome a resistance, and is then immediately 
superposed upon the objects of the external world. 
. Since the ego finds limits to its activity in the 
external world, feels itself hindered by objects, it 
inevitably interprets the hindrance as the expres- 
sion and activity of a sort of will-power analogous 
to itself which things exert against it and by vir- 
tue of which they can or do influence other 
things... . j 
E. Mach says that the concept of force is a 
survival of fetishism; Kirchhoff, in the famous 
prefix to his Mechanics, acknowledges the 
value of the older view in the development of 
the science, and its usefulness in elementary 
teaching, but takes for himself this higher 
ground: 
I propose as the problem of mechanics, to de- 
seribe the motions which occur in nature, and, for- 
sooth, to describe them completely and in the 
simplest way. I will further add that it should 
deal only with this, to state what the phenomena 
are, not to determine their causes. 
For him the term force “ forms only a means 
of simplifying the forms of expression, i. e., to 
express in brief phrases equations which with- 
