262 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. 7III., No. 189 



tific spirit has added new interest to a study which 

 was threatened with neglect, because it was too 

 content with mere assertion, and presumed upon 

 the self-evidence of words to communicate its wis- 

 dom. Although it may determine nothing as to 

 the quality of sensation and consciousness, it will 

 do much to drive away the mist that has ever 

 hovered over many psychological speculations. 



Still experiments have not yet demonstrated the 

 derivative nature of time and space, although they 

 have gone far to make them a matter of intelligible 

 consideration and discussion. They have shown 

 the variability of our empii'ical conceptions of them, 

 but have not destroyed their validity as postulates 

 of experience, because no special sense-perception 

 may be constant enough to supply a criterion of 

 their fixity. Indefinite conceptions of them at 

 least are always assumed. However we may seek 

 for some regular and uniform experiences within 

 the ken of consciousness to serve as constants for 

 them, or as the phenomena which determine and 

 represent our conceptions of them, we shall find by 

 closer scrutiny that some notion of time and space 

 is already postulated in the very phenomena sup- 

 posed to give the psychic constants for them ; that 

 is, we shall in vain endeavor to go outside of time 

 and space to discover events which will account 

 for them, or present their genesis from non-spacial 

 and non-temporal relations. But at the same time 

 experiment is providing data to render them clearer 

 and .more tangible to ordinary reflection than older 

 speculations. For space the theory of ' local signs,' 

 both tactual and visual, is taking the place of tran- 

 scendental conceptions ; and for time, the theory 

 of discontinuous states of consciousness that may 

 be objectively regular and uniform in their causes. 



Among the most important contributions, how- 

 ever, which psychophysics has given to science, 

 are the results showing the differential functions 

 of the nervous system. The sense of temperature 

 has been shown to be as distinct from touch as 

 that is from vision, and even a different nerve is 

 required to perceive cold from that which per- 

 ceives heat. How far this differentiation of the 

 sensorium may be carried, no one can predict. 

 But even the established conclusions of the pres- 

 ent will exert a far-reaching influence upon psy- 

 chological speculations, and none more than the 

 fact that distinct nervous organisms are required 

 to receive representations once supposed to be con- 

 nected with the same sense. It is too Soon to pre- 

 dict what influence it will have in modifying 

 older views : it will certainly modify them, but 

 there is always a truth, even in the past, that 

 avails to survive the mortality of language ; and, 

 although psychophysics may compel us to recon- 

 struct some theories, it will not wholly do away 



with the intellectual conquests of history, or oblige 

 us to cast dust in the face of introspective methods, 

 merely to gratify and strengthen an unnecessary 

 prejudice against older opinions. 



J. H. Hyslop. 



ANATOMICAL AND MEDICAL KNOWL- 

 EDGE OF ANCIENT EGYPT. 



In a paper read at a recent meeting of the Royal 

 institution of Great Britain, Prof. A. Macalister 

 gave an account of the ancient anatomical and 

 medical knowledge of Egypt, of which the follow- 

 ing is a summary from the Lancet. 



The surviving fragnients of the early literature 

 of Egyi^t are mainly of a religious character ; but 

 this is Eot to be wondered at, for the genius of the 

 people was essentially religious, and their doctrine 

 of the future state leavened their national life in 

 almost every particiilar. To them the body was 

 an integral part of the immortal humanity : there- 

 fore it could not be permitted to turn to decay, 

 but had to be preserved from corruption that it 

 might be a fit receptacle for the soul to dwell in 

 through eternity. Their treatment of the body 

 was thus dependent on their belief of its relation 

 to the soul, and this, we learn from their religious 

 wrritings, was a relationship of eternal independ- 

 ence. To secure perpetual preservation, the body 

 had to be properly embalmed, the cavities opened 

 and subjected to the action of antiseptics. 

 Although the body was sacred, under the special 

 protection of the god Thoth, though each part was 

 under the guardianship of a special divinity, yet 

 this sacredness did not preclude careful inspection 

 and the processes necessary for preservation, for 

 all parts had to be perpetuated. 



Embalming was a religious rite, to be performed 

 by the priests of the Cultus ; and the historian 

 Herodotus has preserved for us what is doubtless 

 a substantially accurate account of the different 

 methods whereby it was done in the later times in 

 which he lived. The organs removed from the 

 bodies of persons of the better classes were not 

 returned into the body, but were preserved in vase& 

 of alabaster or stone, surmounted by the heads of 

 the four divinities of Hades, the sons of Horus 

 and Isis. 



During the ascendency of Greek influence in 

 Egypt, Alexandria earned the reputation of being 

 the chief school of anatomy and medicine in the 

 world. Erasistratus, who lived in the days of 

 Ptolemy Soter, B.C. 285, was an anatomist of such, 

 enthusiasm, that he and his disciples received from 

 the king criminals condemned to death. 



But this Alexandrian school, although upon 

 Egyptian soil, was essentially Greek in spirit : 

 even Herophilus had learned some of his anatomy 



