334 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVIII. Ho 462 



only as a step toward something more complete, could not prop- 

 erly be incorporated in the body of the dictionary, Professor 

 Whitney believes that no lexicographer should ignore it. He 

 expresses his opinion in the following vigorous language : " The 

 reformed orthography of the present, made with scientific intent 

 and with a regard for historic and phonetic truth, is more worthy 

 of notice, if a dictionary could discriminate as to worthiness be- 

 tween two sets of facts, than the oftentimes capricious and igno- 

 rant orthography of the past. It need not be said in this diction- 

 ary that the objections brought on etymological and literary and 

 other grounds against the correction of English spelling are the 

 unthinking expressions of ignorance and prejudice. All English 

 etymologists are in favor of the coiTection of English spelling, 

 both on etymological grounds and on the higher ground of the 

 great service it will render to national education and interaational 

 intercourse. It may safely be said that no competent scholar who 

 has really examined the qviestion has come, or could come, to a 

 different conclusion; and it may confidently be predicted that fu- 

 ture English dictionaries will be able to recognize to the full, as 

 this dictionary has been able in its own usage to recognize in part, 

 the right of the English vocabulary to be rightly spelled." These 

 principles, as the last sentence quoted intimates, have, as far as 

 possible, been carried out in the dictionary with regard to the 

 speUing of words the orthography of which varies, by the adop- 

 tion of the simplest or most "phonetic" form; and " The Cen- 



tury" is thus the fiist dictionary to support both by practice and 

 preaching this great movement of philological reason and of com- 

 mon sense. 



— The ethnographic parallel between Israelite and Indian, which 

 was pv blished by Colonel Garrick Mallery in the Popular Science 

 Monthly, in 1889, has been translated into German, by Dr. Fried- 

 rich S. Krauss, the German ethnologist. ' ' Israeliten und Indianer " 

 (Leipzig, Grieben, 1891, pp. 106, 13°) is the title of the version, which 

 renders the thoughts of the original in good German and in a free 

 and easy style. The preface also contains a biography of the 

 author, who is a member of the Bureau of Ethnology in Wash- 

 ington. The article forcibly refutes the existence of monotheism 

 among the Indians, and none of the languages has any word 

 corresponding to our term God. The differences between the 

 Jewish and the Indian institutions and mode of life are thorough- 

 going, but, nevertheless, there are many similarities of strikinj; 

 nature, based on the simplicity of life to be met with with primi- 

 tive nations, and iMallery has sought everywhere to point out the 

 causes on which they are based. 



— The ornamental designs and symbols found on Americaa 

 pottery, implements, objects carved in wood, and other utensils, 

 have been discussed from the genetic and historical standpoint by 

 Professor Alois R. Hein of the Vienna University (-'Maander, 

 Kreuze, Hakenkreuze und urmotivische Wirbelornamente in 



KEO-DARWIKISM AND NEO-LAMARCKISM. 



By LESTER F. WARD, 



Annual address of the President of the Biological 

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 ism, Neo-Lamarckism, the American "School," Ap- 

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 are expressed they are in the main in Hub with the 

 general current of American thought, and opposed 

 to the extreme doctrine of the non-transmissibility 

 of acquired characters. 



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