December 19, 18S4.] 



SCIENCE. 



559 



deductions from monstrous assumptions, affec- 

 tations of impossible learning mingled with a 

 mass of mere jargon, calculated to sound like 

 science to the vulgar. The whole makes such 

 a farrago as might of itself send its writer to 

 the lunatic-asylum, in which he would certainly 

 prove a distinguished ornament — that is, if he 

 is honest in his madness. Still, those who are 

 minded to find ' sermons in stones, and good 

 in every thing,' may get useful matter for re- 

 flection from it. 



First, he may learn that the palmist art of 

 divination is one of the oldest and most wide- 

 spread, as well as the longest to survive, of 

 superstitions. It is perhaps natural that men 

 should try to make some interpretations of the 

 curiously varied lines of the human hand. It 

 would be easy for a primitive people to frame 

 a fancy that the likeness, and at the same time 

 the variety, of the lines in the hands of men, 

 had something akin to the like and the unlike 

 elements of all men's lives. It was, perhaps, 

 from the ever-present longing for light on the 

 great mystery, that some one of old hit on 

 the conjecture that these lines that toil gives to 

 the hand were prophecies of the life that the 

 mortal was to lead. There at once sprang up 

 systems of interpretation less apparently scien- 

 tific than those of the astrologers, yet quite as 

 credible, and winning as much credence in the 

 olden time as did the predictions of the star 

 science. There was a great mass of supersti- 

 tion of this same general nature afloat among all 

 earl}* peoples. Astrology, from the largeness 

 of its claims, and the dignity of its pretended 

 subject-matter, the action of the stars, has 

 always held the first place in the hierarchy 

 of humbugs. Next comes the interpretation of 

 dreams, then divinations by signs, then palm- 

 istry, and at last a variety of less determined 

 means of divination, — the flight of birds, the 

 aspect of their entrails, etc. Where these 

 notions have taken any strong hold upon the 

 people, they have certain common features 

 that show them, one and all, to be the bastard 

 brothers of true science. They all rest upon 

 that idea of likeness in nature which precedes 

 the understanding of cause and effect. Man 

 is always read}- to find the unexplored clouds 

 of nature ' very like a whale,' or ' backed like 

 a camel,' at the bidding of any one who will 

 affect superior discernment, and promise him 

 to rend the future's veil. The more remote 

 the likeness, the more undisciplined men will 

 strain to note it, and, noting, the more implicit 

 their belief in it. 



Such books as this mark the remains of the 

 old truth-searching impulse, which, in its first 



active shape, gave us superstitions, but which, 

 finally united with a critical spirit, gave us true 

 learning. They indicate a stronger survival of 

 the old spirit of superstition than is commonly 

 supposed to continue in educated communities. 



Divination has a higher place in the common 

 mind than most well-trained men are disposed 

 to believe : even in our best educated commu- 

 nities, it is still, as of old, a well-paid profes- 

 sion. In the leading paper of Cambridge, 

 Mass., published within a stone's throw of the 

 university, a professed divinator has kept for 

 years a large business-like and soberly worded 

 advertisement of his services. The circulation 

 of this paper is not among the lower classes : 

 on the contrary, its principal clientele is among 

 the more intelligent people. The present writer 

 is informed that a good many speculators base 

 their ' futures ' on the predictions they obtain 

 from these wizards. We have managed to 

 varnish our American people with an appear- 

 ance of modernism ; but our school system, 

 with its imperfect scientific training, makes no 

 efficient battle against these pernicious relics 

 of the past. It leaves the child without that 

 sense of natural law which alone can overthrow 

 such superstitions. 



We cannot dismiss these indications of a 

 low state of mind with the grin with which 

 one is disposed to treat them. That a consid- 

 erable part of our people still believe in witch- 

 craft is indeed a serious matter. The machinery 

 of our modern society rests on the theory that 

 men are guided by a common sense of cause 

 and effect. In any serious turn of affairs, 

 when action must rest on the general ration- 

 ality of the people, those who support these 

 wizards will prove unfit for trust. Our system 

 of education should be shaped to meet this 

 evil. Children should be forced to see that 

 they live under a reign of law : to leave them 

 longer, with nothing to check this strong inher- 

 ent tendency to base superstition, is to leave 

 rotten timber in the ship of state. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The 'cold-wave flag,' whose use has been inau- 

 gurated by the signal-service during the past autumn, 

 is intended to be displayed not only at the regular 

 stations of the signal-service, but also at as many 

 railway-stations and post-offices as possible, in order 

 to spread the widest notice of the coming change of 

 weather. The service cannot at present undertake 

 to provide the flags or to pay for special telegrams to 

 numerous local display-stations; but the cost of the 

 flags (white, six feet square, with a two-foot black 

 square in centre) is moderate, and can easily be borne 



