78 



SCIENCE. 



confirmed as a fact, that, as Prof. Schellen says, " lumi- 

 nous nebulae actually exist as isolated bodies in space, 

 and these bodies are masses of gas." Thus, clusters, 

 groups, stars and planets, are in process of genesis from 

 primeval cosmic matter, and Cosmology may be regarded 

 as a science, established by the aid of art in the construc- 

 tion of larger telescopes, and their new associate in the 

 field of stellar research, the spectroscope; these bring 

 within the scope of observation new facts, and confirm the 

 generally received theory of the nebular constitution and 

 the genesis of the stellar and planetary systems from such 

 original cosmic matter. 



The conservation of all the lower departments of science 

 to the wants of man, in his individual and social relations, 

 gives a vast superiority of rank to Anthropology. In re- 

 cent times, the chief points of practical importance in the 

 progress or development of this science have pertained to 

 Sociology. Researches in special lines of investigation 

 have furnished many facts of great interest pertaining to 

 antiquities, archives of ancient cities, inscriptions upon 

 rocks, hieroglyphics and monuments, which have yielded 

 abundant fruits to explorers, and vastly increased the 

 knowledge of particular races and languages; while in- 

 creasing evidences are furnished that the antiquity of the 

 human race is much greater than that indicated by the 

 generally accepted chronology. 



In the department of Philology, great progress has been 

 made during the period of our own times. Comparative 

 Philology is no longer confined to the Latin and Greek of 

 the ancient languages, and two or three of the modern 

 languages, but every language of the globe is yielding rich 

 fruits bearing upon history as well as philology ; espe- 

 cially has the Sanscrit, the mother of all the Indo-Euro- 

 pean languages, received special attention, resulting in 

 the establishment of professorships of the Sanscrit in sev- 

 eral colleges. 



But questions of the highest interest pertain to Psychol- 

 ogy, especially relating to our psychical nature and its 

 connection with our physiological constitution, to the 

 phenomena of "Ur conscious cerebration," and other 

 facts which have elicited research in the modes of re- 

 ceiving and retaining sensations and the memory of facts, 

 and in'o the medium of transmitting such impressions. 

 Such inquiries have led to the adoption of the following 

 theory of accounting for these phenomena, viz.: that 

 the psychical constitution is not simply mental or spirit- 

 ual, but is dual or two-fold, consisting of two 

 substances we may conveniently term respectively 

 etheral and spiritual. The following rational deduc- 

 tions are given as the only satisfactory hypotheses 

 pertaining to our interior being, viz.: That the 

 great rapidity of the transmission of impressions, being 

 at least 100 feet per second from the extreme parts of 

 our physical system to the brain, or requiring but one- 

 fifteenth of a second to produce a seniation, involves the 

 necessity of the existence of an ethereal substance per- 

 meating the nerves, and hence called " nervous ether," 

 which forms the elementary substance of the formal 

 psychical nature. That, as the physical germ is the 

 initial organism of the future physical body, "potentially 

 alive," in the germinal state, so this nervous ether con- 

 tains the psychical germ or initial organism of the future 

 psychical body, potentially perfected, and which emerges, 

 in its real or developed form, upon the death of the 

 physical body, or properly its separation from the soul, 

 or interior being. That the psychical nature, while con- 

 nected with the physical, forms the basis of vital action, 

 continuity and identity ; and that the mechanism of 

 thought and feeling involves the necessity of two psychi- 

 cal centres of activity, corresponding wiih the brain and 

 heart, viz. : the psychical sensoriuvi, which is the seat of 

 intellectual action, the basis of sensation, memory, etc., 

 and the psychical cardium, the seat of the emotional and 

 sympathetic affections. 



Scientific progress has both increased the number of 



special sciences and extended the limits of those pre- 

 viously known. This has created the necessity of the 

 division of scientific research, inducing students to pur- 

 sue single lines of inquiry, the result being more 

 thorough and extensive knowledge of the respective de- 

 partments, which have become the common heritage. 

 Examples of this devotion to special sciences are now 

 numerous in every department, as in the case of the late 

 Prof. L. Agassiz, who devoted many years to the study 

 of animalculae. In the history of plants and animals, 

 species, genera, and even classes have been multiplied, 

 as individuals have devoted their lives to these subjects, 

 with all the helps at command, leaving no depths unex- 

 plored. The anatomist and physiologist no longer con- 

 fine attention to the human structure, but find in com- 

 parative anatomy and physiology many types and char- 

 acteristics brought forward and perfected in the higher 

 orders, or old forms substituted by new, till finally, in the 

 human constitution the completed form best adapted, not 

 to the lower purposes of physical strength and endur- 

 ance, by which the animal subserves human ends, but 

 the best form for the higher ends of intellectual, moral 

 and social natures by which man is evidently distin- 

 guished above the brute. 



This division of labor has been found essential in ap- 

 plication to the numerous sciences now demanding vastly 

 increased forces of professional teachers in colleges and 

 universities. Now, a college can scarcely claim the name 

 of a liberal institution of learning in which one professor 

 is required to associate sciences so unnaturally connected 

 as Mathematics and Moral Philosophy, or Chemistry, 

 Botany and Pharmacy, as in some European colleges a 

 century ago. A comparison of the courses of study and 

 the professorships in colleges in our country during the 

 past thirty or forty years will exhibit the marked advance- 

 ment of the sciences, and the increased requirements of 

 the present time. In 1837, Geneva College, now Hobart 

 College, Geneva, N. Y., ot which the writer was a student, 

 contained a professorship of " Mathematics and Natural 

 Philosophy ;" of the " Latin and Greek languagess ;" of 

 " Modern languages, History and Belles-Lettres," to 

 which was added Rhetoric and two other mixed pro- 

 fessorships. For the year 1849 — 1850, the catalogue of 

 Western Reserve College, Hudson, O., of which the writer 

 had been a theological student, exhibits the following : 

 The institution embraced three departments : General 

 Science, Medicine, and Theology, besides a preparatory 

 department. Five professors gave instruction in General 

 Science, or the Literary department ; one of which was 

 the professor of the " Latin and Greek ;" one of " Chem- 

 istry, History, Medical Jurisprudence (in the Medical 

 department), and Natural History," — the latter embracing 

 several branches, including Geology ! and one professor 

 of " Modern Languages." Great advancement upon this 

 order is now exhibited in the principle colleges of our 

 land. I here name only three: In 1875, Lafayette Col- 

 lege, Easton, Pa., had twenty professors and adjunct pro- 

 fessors, besides tutors, assistants and lecturers — twenty- 

 seven in ail. The University of Wooster, O., in 1876, had 

 thirteen instructors in the Literary department, and the 

 same number in the Medical department. The Michigan 

 University, Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1877, had, in all de- 

 partments, fifty-five instructors. 



CAUSE OF THE BLUE COLOR OF CERTAIN 

 WATERS. 

 By Proi". John Le Conte. 

 The consideration of certain facts clearly indicates that 

 the real cause of the blue tints of the waters of certain 

 lakes and seas, is to be traced to the presence of finely - 

 divided matter in a state of suspension in the liquid. 

 We have seen that Sir I. Newton, and most of his suc- 

 cessors as late as 1869, ascribed the blue color of certain 



