650 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. I. No. 24. 



THE TKEE AND THE CONE. 



Every one wlio has given the least atten- 

 tion to works on ancient Assja-ia is familiar 

 with the engraving which shows a winged 

 deity, holding in one hand a small basket 

 or bucket, and in the other something like 

 a pine cone, which he is generally present- 

 ing toward a tree. This used to be con- 

 strued as the ' cherub ' offering the cone, 

 a symbol of reproduction, etc., to the ' sacred 

 tree ' of Babylonian mythology. 



A few years ago Dr. E. B. Tylor advanced 

 the explanation that the ti-ue meaning is a 

 representation of the fertilization of the fe- 

 male date palm, artij&cially, by the agricul- 

 turist impregnating its flowers with the in- 

 florescence of the male tree. This was at 

 once accepted by many writers, while others 

 withheld their assent, asking whj^ a winged 

 cherub instead of a mortal should be de- 

 picted ; and still further pointing out that 

 this same ceremony is not rarely shown 

 where there is no tree at all, but, say, the 

 gate of a city, or some exalted personage, 

 like a king. 



These arguments have been repeated 

 with emphasis by Dr. E. Bonavia in his re- 

 cent work, ' The Flora of the Assyrian 

 Monuments' (London 1894). He shows 

 that the bucket or basket is certainly a 

 bucket, intended for fluids, and inappropriate 

 to carrying flowers. He offers the veiy 

 plausible theory that it was designed to 

 contain holy water, and the cone was an 

 aspergilhim, as it still is in the East. The 

 winged cherub is the rain-bringer typified, 

 etc. 



This is far the most satisfactory interpre- 

 tation which has yet been offered, and allies 

 itself closely with numerous rites and myths 

 of ancient Mesopotamia. 



NATIONAL VERSUS INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT. 



The French have a knack of putting their 

 conclusions in an aphoristic form, which, 

 whether they are right or wrong, impresses 



the mind. An example is the following 

 from a memoir by M. Dumout, published 

 by the Paris Society of Anthropologj- last 

 year: 



" The increase of a nation in numbers is 

 in inverse ratio to the efforts of its indi- 

 vidual members toward personal develop- 

 ment." 



Now, if this is true, it means the discovery 

 of a momentous law in sociology, which, 

 among other consequences, will do away 

 with all fears of over-population in free 

 and enlightened states. Its corollaries 

 would also dismiss both the dread of 

 socialism and likewise of unscrupulous in- 

 dividualism, which two are the Sc5ila and 

 Charybdis of modern political economists. 



Of course, ' efforts toward personal de- 

 velopment ' must be construed as sensible 

 and properly directed efforts towards a de- 

 velopment which is really such, according 

 to the highest criteria we now have. The 

 reasons why such efforts would necessarily 

 limit the numerical increase of a nation are 

 evident enough. Whether these in the 

 long run might not work as badly as the 

 laissez faire, or ' go as you please ' policy, 

 is the question underlying this sociological 

 puzzle. 



THE SOURCES OF PERUVIAN CIVILIZATION. 



In a paper in the Denison Quarterlj^, Vol. 

 III., Dr. George A. Dorsej^ discusses 'The 

 Character and Antiquity of Peruvian Civi- 

 lization.' 



He is inclined to assign it a greater age 

 than has usually been allowed it. He 

 would place its earlier periods contempora- 

 neous with ' the golden age of Greece, or 

 when the people of the Nile valley were in 

 the zenith of their power.' 



Generally, the historic or even the tradi- 

 tional cj^cles of the Quichuas are not sup- 

 posed to carrj' us beyond about 1000 A. D. 

 One historian, Montesinos, who names dy- 

 nasties far more remote than this, has been 



