198 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. YI., No. 135. 



this address, and in that of Professor Eddy, 

 the personal experience of the speaker is so 

 introduced as to give a peculiar value to what 

 is said. Professor Langley of Ann Arbor 

 discusses 'Chemical affinit}^,' "the bud our 

 science put forth in its alchemical stage," 

 but a bud which of late appears to have 

 withered. By an elaborate review he en- 

 deavors to show that "it is the word only 

 which has become obsolete ; the idea behind 

 it is still active and of great importance." 

 Professor Thurston, now of Cornell, takes a 

 much broader theme, the 'Mission of science,' 

 and naturally falls into a more rhetorical 

 paper. In almost optimistic language he 

 points out the value of applied science, and 

 especially of mechanics as an aid to govern- 

 ment in the promotion of social welfare. 

 " The mission of science," he claims, "is to 

 be fulfilled mainly through the application of 

 mechanics." It has made as yet "but the 

 veriest beginning," — but in the end the im- 

 provement of mankind and the development 

 of the human soul are within the range of its 

 potentials. The geological address, b}^ Prof. 

 N. H. Winchell, is in marked contrast to that 

 of Professor Thurston. It is a paper of 

 purely professional interest. He discusses, as 

 a geologist, the crystalline rocks of the north- 

 west, and especiall}^ of Minnesota. It has 

 been usual to refer these rocks either to the 

 Huronian or the Laurentian : now this nomen- 

 clature is acknowledged to be imperfect. The 

 difficulties and incongruities of the situation 

 are clearly set forth. Professor Cope like- 

 wise addresses an audience of specialists, — 

 though the biological specialists in these days 

 are a very comprehensive company. His sub- 

 ject is ' Catagenesis ; ' and he announces his 

 definition of life to be " energy directed by 

 consciousness, or by a mechanism which has 

 originated under the direction of conscious- 

 ness," — and he concludes that " all forms ot 

 energy have originated in the process of run- 

 ning down, or specialization from the primitive 

 energy." Professor Wormley's address on 

 the applications of the microscope in chemical 

 and micrometric observations is onl}^ given in 

 abstract. Professor Morse discusses man in 

 the tertiaries, — not any particular man, we 

 may assure our sceptical readers, but the- 

 possibl3^-to-be-discovered man. " The pro- 

 genitors of quaternary man, under different 

 genera possibly, are to be sought for in the 

 tertiaries." In the section devoted to econo- 

 mics. Gen. John Eaton verj- briefl}^ considers 

 scientific methods and scientific knowledge in 

 common aflTairs. 



EXPERIMENTS IN MEMORY. 



When we read how one mediaeval saint 

 stood erect in his cell for a week without sleep 

 or food, merely chewing a plantain-leaf out of 

 humility, so as not to be too perfect ; how 

 another remained all night up to his neck in a 

 pond that was freezing over ; and how others 

 still performed for the glory of God feats no 

 less tasking to their energies, we are inclined 

 to think, that, with the gods of yore, the men, 

 too, have departed, and that the earth is 

 handed over to a race whose will has become 

 as feeble as its faith. But we ought not to 

 3ield to these instigations by which the evil 

 one tempts us to disparage our own generation. 

 The gods have somewhat changed their shape, 

 'tis true, and the men their minds ; but both 

 are still alive and vigorous as ever for an eye 

 that can look under superficial disguises. The 

 human energy no longer freezes itself in fish- 

 ponds, and starves itself in cells ; but near the 

 north pole, in central Africa, on alpine ' cou- 

 loirs,' and especially in what are nowadaj's 

 called ' psycho-physical laboratories,' it may 

 be found as invincible as ever, and ready for 

 every fresh demand. To most people a north- 

 pole expedition would be an easy task, com- 

 pared with those ineflfably tedious measure- 

 ments of simple mental processes of which 

 Ernst Heinrich Weber set the fashion some 

 forty years ago, and the necessity of extend- 

 ing which in every possible direction becomes 

 more and more apparent to students of the 

 mind. Think of making forty thousand esti- 

 mates of which is the heavier of two weights, 

 or seventy thousand answers as to whether 

 3'our skin is touched at two points or at one, 

 and then tabulating and mathematically dis- 

 cussing 3'our results ! Insight is to be gained 

 at no less price than this. The new sort of 

 study of the mind bears the same relation to 

 the older psychology that the microscopic 

 anatomy of the body does to the anatomy of 

 its visible form, and the one will undoubtedly 

 be as fruitful and as indispensable as the 

 other. 



Dr. Ebbinghaus makes an original addition 

 to heroic ps3'chological literature in the little 

 work whose title we have given. For more 

 than two years he has apparently spent a con- 

 siderable time each day in committing to 

 memor3^ sets of meaningless syllables, and tr3"- 

 ing to trace numerically the laws according to 

 which they were retained or forgotten. Most 



Ueber das geddchtniss. TJntersuchungen zur experimentellen 

 psychologie. Von Hebm. Ebbinghaus. Leipzig, Duncker u. 

 Humblot, 1885. 10+169 p. 8°. 



