296 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 347. 



says: "It is a great advantage for the sure 

 understanding of abstractions if one seeks to 

 make of them the most concrete picture possi- 

 ble, even when the doing so brings in many 

 an assumption that is not exactly necessary." 

 Just how much of this useful theory is to be- 

 come the common pi'operty of all men it is im- 

 possible to say. For one thing, the theory is 

 not by any means fixed and may not be for a 

 century to come, and no one but the most de- 

 termined specialist can be expected to appro- 

 priate and use the more complex theories which 

 depend upon the keenest mechanical sense, the 

 sharpest algebraic faculty, the strongest geo- 

 metrical imagination and the most devoted 

 study ; but there is a great and growing body 

 of simple conception and theory which can and 

 does represent to the understanding a vast 

 array of fact. Every one should know that 

 the physicist's idea of a thing such as a gas, 

 an electric current, or a beam of light comes 

 very near to being a working model of the 

 thing. The elements out of which such models 

 are made are purely notional, and although 

 the physicist habitually speaks of them in 

 objective terms for the sake of concreteness 

 and clearness, it is of the utmost importance 

 that the thought be chiefly directed to the 

 physical facts which are represented and not 

 to the models themselves. Thus the chemist 

 may speak of the tetrahedral carbon molecule 

 with assymetrically attached molecular groups, 

 while the thought is directed chiefly to those 

 remarkable physical properties of sugar and 

 tartaric acid which are intended to be repre- 

 sented. 



There is a tendency among reflecting men to 

 confuse the boundaries between our logical con- 

 structions and the objective realms which they 

 represent to the understanding. In fact, Miin- 

 sterberg maintains that this confusion is the 

 gravest danger of our time. It seenas to us that 

 these logical constructions constitute the nox- 

 ious gases mentioned by Professor Woodrow 

 Wilson as escaping from our laboratories, and 

 that they become noxious by confusion and mis- 

 use. The old idolatry is the worship of exter- 

 nal form — imagine a remote ancestor worship 

 fully contemplating the newly invented club 

 instead of using it — and the new is the con- 



templation of our logical constructions in an 

 aspect in which they are not real, a vaporous 

 idolatry which is frightfully prevalent. 



We are impressed more and more every day 

 with the fact that the most satisfactory special- 

 ist to talk with is the biologist. His knowl- 

 edge is not represented to his mind by means of 

 that mathematical-mechanical system of con- 

 ceptions which is the basis of all our knowledge 

 in physical science, but it approaches ai-t in its 

 close association with external form. Conver- 

 sation with a physicist, however, is very like 

 looking into the mechanism of a Mergenthaler 

 type-casting machine with the machine out of 

 sight, feasible enough among designers and 

 builders, but scarcely a satisfactory basis for the 

 flow of thought when one party in the con- 

 versation happens to be unfamiliar with and 

 perhaps not interested in the mechanism in ques- 

 tion. Nevertheless a seriously minded physi- 

 cist cannot help feeling mortified when he sees 

 a colleague of Professor Starr's standing exam- 

 ining a more or less fanciful, inoperative, and 

 obsolete pea-shooter with the pleasurable con- 

 viction that he is unraveling the intricacies of a 

 complicated mechanism of the latest and most 

 approved construction. 



W. S. Franklin. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES. 

 The American Anthropologist for April-June, 

 which has just reached us, contains the follow- 

 ing articles : 



' The Owakiilti Altar at Sichomovi Pueblo ' : 

 J. Walter Fewkes. 



' Chalchihuitl in Ancient Mexico ' : Zelia Nut- 

 TALL. 



' Notes on the Alsea Indians of Oregon ' : Liv- 

 ingston Farkand. 



' Kootenay Group-drawings ' : Alexander F. 

 Chamberlain. 



' Ethnology in the Jesuit Eelations ' : JoSJSPH D. 

 McGuiRB. 



' Eare Books relating to the American Indians ' : 

 Ainsworth R. Spofford. 



' Summary of the Archeology of Saginaw Valley, 

 Michigan ' : Harlan I. Smith. 



'Mummification, especially of the Brain ' : D. S. 

 Lamb. 



' Decorative Symbolism of the Arapaho ' (with 

 plates V. and VI. ) : A. L. Keoeber. 



