SCIENCE 



Friday, September 9, 1921 



CONTENTS 



The Nature of Man : Pkofessor Cassius J. 

 Keyser 205 



Mendelian or Non-Mendelian: Professor 

 George A. Shull 213 



Scientific Events: 



Memorial to James Orton; Vaccination for 

 Smallpox in England; The Work of the 

 Boyal Observatory at the Cape of Good 

 Hope; The International Commission on Il- 

 lumination; Chemistry and Civilization .... 216 



Scientific Notes and News 219 



University and Educational News 220 



Discussion and Correspondence: 



The Chert Pits at Coxachie, N. Y.: Everett 

 E. Bdrmaster. The use of Agar in facili- 

 tating the Removal of a Swallowed Foreign 

 Object: Dr. LeRoy S. Weatherby". An 

 Inconsistency in Taxonomy: Professor Ed- 

 win C. Starks. Estimating the Number of 

 Genetic Factors concerned in Cases of 

 Blending Inheritance: Professor W. E. 

 Castle. The Curve of Distribution: Dk. 

 Carl H. P. Thurston 221 



Quotations : 

 Dyes for Bacteriology 224 



Special Articles: 



The Second-year Becord of Birds which did 

 and which did not lay during Individual 

 Months of the Pullet Tear: Dr. J. Arthur 

 Harris, Harry E. Lewis 224 



The American Chemical Society: Dr. Charles 

 L. Parsons 226 



The Soyal Society of Canada 229 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., intended for 

 review should be sent to The Editor of Science, Garrison-on- 

 Hudson, N. y. 



THE NATURE OF MAN i 



A FEW years ago, as you may remember, 

 :61ie Metchnikoff published a book entitled 

 " The Nature of Man : Studies in Optimistic 

 Philosophy." If you have read that interesting 

 work, you know that it is chiefly concerned 

 with the great problem of death — with the 

 problem, that is, of adjusting human emotions 

 and human understanding satisfactorily to the 

 common doom of living creatures. In 

 Metchnikoff's view that problem has been 

 mainly responsible for the existence of re- 

 ligions and philosophies. In his belief re- 

 ligions and philosophies have not been able to 

 deal with the problem satisfactorily; but their 

 failure, says he, is no reason for despair; for 

 it is his conviction — and here we see why he 

 deemed his study to be one in optimistic phi- 

 losophy — that the problem can be satisfactorily 

 solved by science and in particular by the sci- 

 ence of biology, for the process of dying is one 

 of the processes of life. And so his book aims 

 at being an important contribution to what 

 may be called the science or the philosophy 

 of death. 



I hope that this address upon " The Nature 

 of Man " may appear to you, as it appears to 

 me, to be, likewise, a study, or the result of 

 a study, in optimistic philosophy. It is not 

 of death, however, that I intend to speak, 

 but of life. I desire to look towards the possi- 

 bility — to contemplate the possibility — of a 

 valid philosophy, or a science, of human life. 



The core of my message is a certain concept 

 — a concept regarding the essential nature of 

 man. The concept is, I believe, both new and 

 important — strictly new, if I be not mistaken, 

 and tremendously important. This judgment 

 I may express with propriety because the idea 



1 Address at the annual meeting of the Phi 

 Beta Kappa Society, Columbia University, May 

 31, 1921. 



