Febriary 8, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



159 



friends was sometiuies added to the sacri- 

 fice. This was especially the case wlun 

 personages of great importance were buried. 

 In connection with the rite a mythologic 

 lore sprang up in many tribes by which 

 special virtues were attributed to the sacri- 

 fices as necessary to the happiness and 

 prosperitj' of the dead on their journey to 

 the spirit abode and for their welfare on 

 their arrival in the land of the ghosts. 



In the burial of these works of art, rec- 

 ords of the stage of culture to wliich they 

 and their contemporaries had arrived were 

 placed with the dead. It is thus that the 

 tombs become priceless relics of antiquity. 

 In later times, when tiibes had been organ- 

 ized into nations and higher arts devel- 

 oped, catacombs, sepulchers and mauso- 

 leums were constructed, sometimes hewn in 

 the rock. In the sarcophagi and in the 

 chambers of death many vestiges of culture 

 are found, and often inscriptions are discov- 

 ered, all of which arc now of priceless value. 

 It is thus that the tombs of the ancients 

 constitute a book of history. Let us call it 

 the Book of the Tombs. 



Tribes and nations are still scattered over 

 the whole habitable earth, and the people 

 who dwell on the continents and islands 

 labor in many arts, sport in many pleasures, 

 speak in many tongues, are governed bj- 

 many institutions, and entertain manj- and 

 widely divergent opinions. In aU of these 

 forms of culture some peoples have passed 

 beyond othei"s on the five highways of life, 

 so we are able to study peoples in various 

 stages of culture. Xo people have invented 

 a culture at one great effort, but whatever 

 arts they practice have been graduallj' ac- 

 quired bj' eflbrt extending from primeval 

 to present time. The humanities discovered 

 as existing in any tribe or nation constitute 

 an epitome of the historj' of welfare, which 

 has been developed l)y minute increments 

 of progress through untold generations of 

 eflbrt. Their arts, tlien, have been inherited 



from generation to generation, while every 

 generation has made its contribution to their 

 development. The primeval arts of in- 

 dustry, therefore, have not been lost, but 

 have grown to something higher. 



In like manner, the pleasures in which a 

 people primarily engaged far back in an- 

 tiquity, when the habitable earth was fii*st 

 peopled by lowly tribes, still remain, trans- 

 formed into a higher life of childish sports, 

 athletic exercise, more beautiful decora- 

 tions, more intellectual games, and more 

 elaborate fine arts. There is thus an im- 

 mortality of the arts of pleasure by inheri- 

 tance fi-om generation to generation. 



Speech is produced by generations of peo- 

 ples. AVords are lost in the air, but the 

 meanings of words and the knowledge of 

 their formation remain and are taught from 

 generation to generation, so that even evan- 

 escent oral language has perennial life. 



Institutions, which are devised to regu- 

 late conduct, live on, and gi-adually develop 

 as new conditions arise which demand new 

 solutions. Old forms are inherited, but by 

 minute increments they are transformed, as 

 new concepts of justice are developed. 



So opinions have a personal existence by 

 inheritance and a constant change by de- 

 velopment as knowledge increases. 



I see the germ bursting from the acorn, 

 with its stem and plumule of leaves ; I .see 

 the plantlet bourgeoning from the earth ; I 

 see the scion stretching its green arms into 

 the air ; I see the old oak with its great 

 branches in a benediction of shade. Dis- 

 covering oaklets in acorns, and mighty oaks 

 with dead branches and djing trunks and 

 nmltitudes of intermediate forms in every 

 oak gi-ove, I learn the history of the gi-owth 

 of oaks without watching the germs until 

 they Ijccome dead trees. In like manner, 

 all of the humanities may be studied in va- 

 rious stages of growth by studying the for- 

 est of tribes and nations scattered over the 

 face of the earth. A host of men are en- 



