September 20, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



379 



from 3,697 at Naples to 87 at Milan. The 

 percentage of medical students to the pop- 

 ulation is about 61 per 100,000 inhabitants. 

 In Prance it is 57 per 100,000, and in Ger- 

 many 63 per 100,000. 



The Cambridge University Calendar for 

 the academical year 1895-6 gives as the total 

 number of undergraduate students 2,895, 

 an increase of 56 compared with last year. 



Miss Helen Gould has founded two 

 scholarships of $5,000 each in the Univer- 

 sity of the City of New York. 



Mrs. Fbaser, widow of the late Bishop 

 of Manchester, has bequeathed £3,000 to 

 Oriel College, Oxford, for the foundation of 

 a scholarship ; and also £3,000 to Owens 

 College, Manchester, towards the endow- 

 ment of a chair of ecclesiastical history. 



Dr. Lingi Palazzo, of Officio Centrale di 

 Meteorologia e di Geodinamica, Rome, has 

 been made a professor. 



Dr. Behbend, of Leipzig, has been called 

 to the chair of chemistry in the Technical 

 High School of Hanover, and Dr. Roller to 

 an assistant professorship in the University 

 of Prague. 



It is stated that Dr. Nathaniel Butler, of 

 Chicago University, has declined the presi- 

 dency of Colby University. 



Prof. W. S. Strong, of the University of 

 Colorado, has accepted a professorship of 

 physics and geology in Bates College. 



The will of the late Benjamin P. Cheney 

 bequeathes $10,000 to the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology. 



The Catholic University has decided to 

 admit women to lectures in the regular 

 and special courses. 



It is stated that the Hon. Carroll D. 

 Wright will give a course of lectures on 

 political economy during the coming winter 

 in the McManon Hall of Philosophy of the 

 Catholic University. 



COBBESPONDENCE. 

 ARE CONSEQUENCES EVER A TEST OF TRUTH? 



I AM glad that Professor Cattell (Science, N. 

 S., II., p. 271-2) has taken me at my word 

 in regard to criticisms of recent articles ; even 

 tliough I may be the first to suffer. lu my re- 

 cent article in the Monist I had spoken of evil 

 consequences as a reason for rejecting the view 

 that natural selection is the only factor in social 

 evolution. On this Professor Cattell remarks : 

 ' ' But even if these practical consequences fol- 

 low, one is surely not justified in arguing that 

 facts do not exist because we would gladly 

 have them otherwise." 



Now I admit that Professor Cattell may be 

 right from a scientific point of view, but not, I 

 think, from the widest philosophic point of 

 view. This opens a very wide question, but 

 hardly adapted to a scientific jovirnal. I can, 

 therefore, touch it very lightly and only in the 

 way of barest suggestion ; and even so I fear I 

 shall raise more questions than I solve. 



It is indeed true that many things which we, 

 from the point of view of the now and the self, 

 would gladly ha,ve otherwise are nevertheless 

 true ; yet I do not think that a doctrine or idea 

 which, if carried out, would be disastrous to 

 humanity as a whole and in the final outcome can 

 be true. If it were, then our intellectual and 

 moral natures would be in hopeless conflict and 

 Ave ourselves in a state of irretrievable confu- 

 sion. 



Or put it in another way : There are certain 

 postulates which are a necessary condition of 

 our effective activity in this world. We cannot 

 prove them; we assume them because neces- 

 sary to our activity. We assume the existence 

 of the external world as a necessary condition 

 of physical activity. We assume a rational or- 

 der of the universe — a universal reign of law — as 

 a necessary condition of scientific activity. We 

 may not be able in a particular case to see law 

 and rational order ; on the contrary, all may seem 

 chaos and confusion, but we are sure that this 

 seeming chaos is the result of our ignorance and 

 that behind it is perfect order. So, also, there 

 are postulates of our moral nature, postulates 

 because absolutely necessary conditions of our 

 moral activity. Such a postulate Is the exist- 

 ence of a universal moral order — a perfect 



