November 25, 1887.] 



SCIENCE 



263 



newly aroused intellectual activity should have found expression in 

 the so-called theosophical movement. The first impulse to this 

 idealistic development did not come, however, from India itself, but 

 from abroad. It came from the land which, as the writer cynically 

 expresses it, is the most unfruitful soil for idealistic fruit, the United 

 States of America. It was in New York, as long ago as 1875, that 

 Colonel Olcott laid the corner-stone of the theosophical structure 

 which was soon to exercise so wide-spread an influence. The prin- 

 ciples of the cosmopolitan brotherhood of theosophists, which in 

 certain particulars resemble those of the Freemasons or those of the 

 Jewish sect of the Essenes, rapidly spread through other countries. 

 The indefatigable apostle of the new society did his work so well, 

 that the number of associate societies, which in 1879 was only two, 

 increased in 1883 to ninety-three, and in 1886 to one hundred and 

 thirty-two. Of this last number, 107 are in India, 8 in Europe, 15 

 in America, i in Africa, and i in Australia. The headquarters and 

 administrative centre of all these societies is Adyar, a rural capital in 

 Madras, where Colonel Olcott dwells, on the banks of a river in a 

 paradise of palms and flowers. His villa also serves as the gather- 

 ing-place where each year in Christmas week more or fewer of the 

 delegates of the theosophical .societies throughout India assemble 

 in convention. Colonel Olcott has managed to imbue thousands of 

 men of the higher circles of India with his ideas. He is greatly 

 honored by his fellow-theosophists, and is loved as a father and 

 benefactor. His occasional journeys through the countiy are 

 like triumphal processions, and his influence over the cultured 

 classes of the Hindus throughout India is extraordinary. 



Some idea of the objects and aims of the Theosophical Society 

 may be gathered from the following selection from the declaration 

 of principles adopted at the annual assembly of the delegates in 

 18S6. The objects of the society are there set forth as, (i) to lay 

 the foundation for a universal brotherhood of man, without distinc- 

 tion of race, religion, or color; (2) to promote the study of the 

 Arj'an and other Oriental literatures, religions, and sciences ; (3) to 

 investigate hitherto unknown natural forces and the psychical 

 powers of man (which is pursued by a part of the brotherhood 

 only). The brotherhood invites to membership all those who love 

 their fellow-men, and who believe the divisions following from dif- 

 ferences of race, religion, and color, to be an evil ; all students and 

 scholars ; all earnest seekers after truth ; all philosophers in the 

 East as well as in the West ; all those who love India and desire 

 the return of its former spiritual greatness ; and, finally, all those 

 who are striving after permanent good, and not mere passing 

 pleasures and the interests of a wordly life, and who are ready to 

 make personal sacrifices in order to attain to knowledge of the 

 highest good. The society professes no special religion, and has 

 in no wise the character of a sect, for it includes followers of all 

 religions. It demands of all its members only such tolerance of 

 other faiths as each man asks for his own. The society interferes 

 in no way with the Indian laws of caste, nor with any other social 

 customs and usages. 



To exemplify these tolerant principles, the assembly hall at 

 Adyar contains life-size portraits of the representatives and found- 

 ers of all the great religions. One of the matters in which the 

 society is busily engaged is the collecting of rare books of the old 

 Indian literature, written often on palm-leaves. The value of this 

 Sanscrit library increases daily, and it is hoped to make it in time 

 the most complete in the world. 



The illustration on p. 262 shows the delegates who assembled at 

 Adyar in 1885. The beautiful Indian costumes, with their bright 

 colors, and the high turbans often sewn with gold and silver 

 threads, made the group peculiarly artistic and pleasing. Among 

 the distinguished theosophists shown are President Olcott, Prince 

 Harisingshee, the English general Morgan, the theosophist evan- 

 gelist Leadbeater (formerly an Anglican clergyman), the Sanscrit 

 scholar Bavanishangar, Mr. Cooper Oakley, an American and the 

 editor of the Theosophist, and the Hindu philosopher Subba Rad. 

 At these assemblies it is noticed by visitors that the delegates con- 

 fine themselves to a vegetarian diet, and do not partake of any 

 Uquor whatsoever. The assembly closed with a brilliant garden- 

 party, at which old Sanscrit songs were sung to Indian music, and 

 the delegates were sprinkled with rose-water and bedecked with 

 flowers. 



BOOK -REVIEWS. 

 The Education of Man. By Freidrich Froebel. Tr. by W. 



N. Hailmann. New York, Appleton. 12°. 

 Elementary Psychology and Education. By J. Baldwin. New 

 York, Appleton. 12°. 



Dr. Harris is issuing the volumes of his International Educa- 

 tion Series with great promptness. Volume V. in the series is 

 Froebel's classic work translated. Since this was written, now 

 more than sixty years ago, its readers have increased in number 

 year by year. Inaccessibility and bad translations have hindered 

 its progress in this country, but both these obstacles are now over- 

 come, and no teacher who is imbued with the spirit of his profes- 

 sion will fail to have the ' Education of Man ' by him for careful 

 study and constant reference. We believe that posterity will award 

 to Froebel the highest place among modern educators. He was 

 infinitely more practical than the authors of ' Emile ' and ' Levana,' 

 and infinitely more profound and philosophical than Pestalozzi. 

 The spirit of the kindergarten is Froebel's greatest achievement : 

 the kindergarten itself is a mere detail. The spirit runs through 

 all sound education, and the great manual-training movement, now 

 the distinguishing feature of our educational development, is but 

 another manifestation of it. The present translation of Froebel is 

 a very good one, and leaves little to be desired. We regret that 

 the translator has disfigured the text and broken the continuity by 

 interjecting observations of his own. 



Volume VI. is Baldwin's ' Elementary Psychology and Educa- 

 tion.' Of it we cannot conscientiously say any thing complimen- 

 tary, and we confess our surprise at its finding a place in the series. 

 We do not object to making psychology as elementary as one 

 pleases, but we do object to making it pre-Kantian. The present 

 author may have heard of the Kritik der reinen Ver?iimft, but he 

 certainly has never read it. We agree most heartily with Dr. Har- 

 ris, that a teacher should know something of psychology, and we 

 would go considerably further than he does in emphasizing the fact. 

 But we submit that to teach psychology that is positively wrong 

 and unscientific under the pretence that it is elementary, is worse 

 than to teach nothing of it at all. Illustrations of loose statement 

 and positive error abound in this book. We read, for example, of 

 " sense-perception, conscious perception, and noumenal perception." 

 The ' enduring self,' matter, mind, space, causation, right, beauty, 

 and the like, are included under ' noumena.' We are told also that 

 " choice is uncaused cause," and the fact that " literature represents 

 man as free and responsible " is cited as an argument for freedom 

 of the will. It is not profitable to multiply the evidences of the 

 author's incapacity to write the book. It is in no respect worthy 

 of a place in this series. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 

 Another important acquisition to our store of knowledge has 

 recently been made, says Nature. Glucose, commonly called 

 grape-sugar, has been artificially prepared by Drs. Emil Fischer 

 and Julius Tafel in the chemical laboratory of the University of 

 Wiirzburg. This happy achievement, which is announced in the 

 number of the Berichte just received, is one which has long been 

 looked forward to, and which cannot fail to give deep satisfaction 

 in chemical circles all over the world. As is generally the case in 

 syntheses of this description, not only has the sugar itself been 

 actually prepared, but, what is at least quite as important, consid- 

 erable light has been thrown upon that much-discussed question, 

 the constitution of sugars. A most remarkable, and yet only to be 

 expected, attribute of this artificial sugar is that it is found to be 

 entirely incapable of rotating a beam of polarized light. As is well 

 known, there are several naturally occurring varieties of glucose, all 

 of which may be expressed by the same empirical constitution, and 

 all possessing the power of rotating the plane of polarization : dex- 

 trose, or grape-sugar, the best-known of these varieties, as its name 

 implies, deviates the plane of polarization to the right, as do several 

 other less important varieties ; while lavulose, or fruit-sugar, ro- 

 tates the plane to the left. But in artificially preparing a glucose 

 there is just as much tendency for one kind to be formed as an- 

 other, and the probability is that both dextro and tevo are simulta- 

 neously formed, and thus neutralize each other, producing a totally 

 inactive mixture. It may be that, as in the case of racemic acid, 



