June 3, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



871 



By means of a mystic word, an ordinary weapon 

 becomes bewitched and acquires supernatural 

 power. Magic in sacrifice was shown to lead to 

 human sacrifice, that out of the dead new life 

 might arise. Water-magic was shown to result 

 in the Hindu custom of touching water in making 

 a vow, etc. The evil eye was found to be an 

 article of faith with all the epic characters; also 

 the belief in the king's healing touch, etc. The 

 paper took up, one by one, all the observances 

 noticed in the great epic, which is seven times 

 as long as the Iliad and Odyssey put together. 

 The Bearded Venus: MoBEls Jastbow, Jr., Phila- 

 delphia. 



In a hymn to the goddess Ishtar, the expression 

 occurs that " she is bearded like the god Ashux." 

 On the basis of this phrase, the conclusion has 

 been drawn that the Babylonians and Assyrians 

 conceived of Ishtar as both male and female. 



It appears, however, that in astrological texts 

 the planet Venus, who is identified with Ishtar, 

 is frequently described as having a "beard"; 

 and it is evident from the connection in which 

 this phrase is used, as well as from explanatory 

 remarks added in the astrological texts in ques- 

 tion, that the reference is either to the brilliant, 

 sparkling appearance of the planet or to the 

 blurred appearance which suggests the rough 

 fringes of a beard. The phrase in the hymn to 

 Ishtar, therefore, is based upon the metaphor 

 used of the planet Venus, and as the further eon- 

 text of the hymn shows, is intended to convey 

 the idea that Ishtar is as " brilliant " as the 

 solar god, Ashur. 



The second part of the paper was devoted to 

 an investigation of the evidence for a bearded 

 Venus among the Greeks and Romans. It was 

 shown that most of the passages upon which such 

 an hypothesis was based were capable of a dif- 

 ferent explanation. So, for example, the state- 

 ment of Herodotus that the priestess of the war 

 goddess of the Carians (whom Herodotus iden- 

 tified with Athene ) , grows a beard when hostili- 

 ties are brewing, evidently refers to a prevailing 

 custom, according to which the priestess puts on 

 a beard in order to emphasize, in accord with the 

 principle of sympathetic magic, the hope that the 

 war goddess will manifest her power and strength. 

 The beard in this case is the symbol of the war- 

 rior, and it may be that the significant passage 

 in Servius, who states that there was an image 

 of a bearded Venus in Cyprus, is to be explained 

 by some similar custom. 



The conclusion reached by Professor Jastrow 



was that it was more than doubtful whether in 

 the Greek Pantheon, as little as in that of Baby- 

 lonia and Assyria, there was such a figure as a 

 " bearded lady." The problem was distinct from 

 that of " hermaphroditism," which is a compara- 

 tively late phenomenon in Greek religion, the 

 earliest reference to it being in Theophrastus ; nor 

 does it follow from the fact that the goddess in 

 question, both among tne Semites and Aryans, 

 was occasionally viewed as having the traits of a 

 male deity, that she would be regarded anywhere 

 at one and the same time as both male and 

 female. 

 Early Greek Theories of Sound and Consonance: 



Wm. Romaine Newbold, Philadelphia. 

 Historical Aspect of German Mysticism of the 

 Fourteenth Century: KuNO Fbancke, Cam- 

 bridge. 



A characteristic feature of all Romantic litera- 

 ture is the tendency to oscillate between the ex- 

 tremes of symbolism and naturalism. The dwell- 

 ing together of these two extremes in particularly 

 intense and particularly refined individuals is 

 nothing accidental. It is founded on the inner 

 affinity between symbolism and naturalism, on 

 their both springing from the common root of an 

 unusually high-strung subjectivity. All truly 

 artistic grasp of life comes from within. The 

 symbolist finds the essence of things in his own 

 inner self. In the throng of shapes and images 

 that arise before him from within he sees the 

 true reality. The tangible and visible he replaces 

 by a world of his own creation, a world of higher, 

 finer, more spiritual values. But the naturalistic 

 artist also is far removed from being a mere 

 imitator of outward reality. He transports him- 

 self into the inner life of things, he feels that the 

 whole variety of the outer world streams forth 

 from one mighty source. He feels akin to this 

 mighty power, he feels the impulse to create a 

 living world. His art, therefore, although seem- 

 ingly objective, is, like that of the symbolist, the 

 product of his own high-pitched subjectivity. 



In the few greatest artists of all ages, in a 

 Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, these two diverging 

 but kindred tendencies, the symbolistic and the 

 naturalistic, are melted together into an indis- 

 soluble imity. In less harmonious, more erratic 

 personalities, such as Amadeus Hoffmann, Poe, 

 Ibsen, Hauptmann and other Romanticists, there 

 is, instead of this unity of contrasting elements, 

 a constant clash between them, a continuous 

 oscillation between extravagant symbolism on the 

 one hand, and inexorable naturalism on the other. 



