NOVEMBEE 20, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



751 



jEgean art whicli developed in the favored 

 vales of Phrygia and Lydia. 



Other questions, of broader scope, are 

 also touched upon by Mr. Evans. Dis- 

 missing the ' glamour of the Orient,' reject- 

 ing the orthodox notion that the primitive 

 Aryan was some sort of a ' patriarchial mis- 

 sionary of Central Asian culture,' he declares 

 for the greater probability that what the 

 Aryan knew he had learned by study on the 

 spot, and that his lineage is to be traced in 

 European or 'Eurafrican,' surroundings from 

 far back into the darkness of paleolithic 

 times. Even then, in that rude and distant 

 period, he was not of the brutes, brutish ; 

 for Mr. Evans relates an unpublished find 

 of a surface burial, dating from Quaternary 

 times, where the corpse had been laid in a 

 position of decent repose, the shell knife, 

 the deer's tooth ornaments and the paint 

 pot by its side. 



D. G. Brinton. 



Univeesity of Pennsylvania. 



ASTBONOMIGAL NOTES. 



Dr. See's recent discovery of a com- 

 panion to Sirius has been followed by ob- 

 servations at the Lick Observatory, accord- 

 ing to a letter received from Prof. Holden. 

 Profs. Schaeberle and Aitken, observing 

 with the 36-inch, find the position angle of 

 the companion to be about 189°, while Dr. 

 See, Mr. Douglass and Mr, Cogshall, obser- 

 ving with the large telescope of the Lowell 

 Observatory, found 220°. As Dr. Auwers's 

 ephemeris in Astronomische Nachrichten No. 

 3085 gives 176° for this position angle, it is 

 evident that the whole matter will require 

 further elucidation. 



The Saxon Academy of Sciences has pub- 

 lished an extended paper by Dr. J. Hart- 

 mann on eclipses of the moon. It forms a 

 sequel to the same astronomer's well known 

 work on the best value of the moon's dia- 

 meter to be used in the prediction of lunar 

 eclipses. H. J. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 SCIENCE, DEMOCRACY AND THE UNIVERSITY. 



Professor Woodrow Wilson's oration at the 

 Princeton Sesquicentenial Celebration was ad- 

 mirable as a work of literary art ; but as an 

 official address, representing the policy of a 

 great college aiming to become a university, it 

 challenges criticism. Professor Wilson chooses 

 his words carefully and enters caveats against his 

 own conclusions. But on the whole he advo- 

 cates the monastic ideal for a university ; he 

 mistrusts modern democracy and deplores 

 modern science. For him the university is " a 

 place removed — calm Science seated there, re- 

 cluse, ascetic, like a nun, not knowing that the 

 world passes, not caring if the truth but come 

 in answer to her prayer ; and Literature, walk- 

 ing within her open doors in quiet chambers 

 with men of olden time, storied walls about her 

 and calm voices infinitely sweet ; here ' magic 

 casements opening on the foam of perilous seas 

 in fairy lands forlorn,' to which you may with- 

 draw and use your youth for pleasure." 



For us Science is no ' recluse, ascetic, like a 

 nun,' ' doing us a great disservice, working in 

 us a great degeneracy when it mingles in the 

 affairs of the modern world. ' If we must choose 

 a mediaeval simile. Science is rather Diirer's 

 Knight, firmly seated on truth, not minding 

 death greatly, looking forward without fear, 

 ready to aid and, if need be, to kill. The de- 

 mocracy of to-day has been made possible by 

 science, and science will control its future. We 

 are not ashamed of the alliance ; it is better for 

 some men to think unwisely than for most men 

 not to think at all. Progress can only result 

 from variations, and favorable variations can- 

 not occur apart from such as are harmful. We 

 do not retire from the world to use ' our youth 

 for pleasure ' and our age for contemplation. 

 We stand as leaders amidst a conflict whose 

 outcome we shall decide. 



Professor Wilson tells us that "the world's 

 memory must be kept alive, or we shall never 

 see the end of its old mistakes. We are in 

 danger to lose our identity and become infantile 

 in every generation. That is the real menace 

 under which we cower everywhere in this age 

 of change. ' ' Such utilitarianism is futile. We 

 are the past ; it is alive in us and in our envir- 



