SCIENCE. 



119 



the necessary and inevitable results of the habit preva- 

 lent among savage men to maltreat and dagrade their 

 women,— its effects upon the constitution, and char- 

 acter, and endurance of children, we cannot fail to 

 see how grossly unnatural it is, how it must tend to the 

 greater and greater degradation of the race, and how re- 

 covery from this downward path must become more 

 and more difficult or impossible. But vicious, destruc- 

 tive, unnatural as this habit is, it is not the only one or 

 the worst of similar character which prevail among sav- 

 age men. A horrid catalogue comes to our remem- 

 brance when we think of them — polyandry, infanticide, 

 cannibalism, deliberate cruelty, systematic slaughter 

 connected with warlike passions or with religious cus- 

 toms. Nor are these vices, or the evils resulting from 

 them, peculiar to the savage state. Some of them, 

 indeed, more or less changed and modified in form, at- 

 tain a rank luxuriance in civilized communities, conupt 

 the very bones and marrow of society, and have brought 

 powerlul nations to decay and death. 



It is, indeed, impossible to look abroad either upon the 

 past history or the existing condition of mankind, whether 

 savage or civilized, without seeing that it presents phen- 

 omena which are strange and monstrous — incapable of 

 being reduced within the harmony of things or recon- 

 ciled with the unity of Nature. The contrasts which it 

 presents to the general laws and course of Nature can- 

 not be stated too broadly. There is nothing like it in the 

 world. It is an element of confusion amidst universal 

 order. Powers excepiionally high spending themselves 

 in activities exceptionally base ; the desire and the fa- 

 culty of acquiring knowledge coupled with the desire and 

 the faculty of turning it to the worst account ; instincts 

 immeasurabl/ superior to those of other creatures, along 

 side of conduct and of habits very much below the level 

 of the beasts — such are the combinations with which we 

 have to deal as . unquestionable facts when we contem- 

 plate the actual condition of Mankind. And they are 

 combinations in the highest degree unnatural ; there is 

 nothing to account for, or to explain them in any appar- 

 ent natural necessity. 



The question then arises, as one of the greatest of all 

 mysteries — how it is and why it is that the higher gifts of 

 Man's nature should not have been associated with cor- 

 responding dispositions to lead as straight and as unerr- 

 ingly to the crown and consummation of his course, as 

 the dispositions of other creatures do lead them to the 

 perfect development of their powers and the perfect dis- 

 charge of their functions in the economy of Nature ? 



It is as if weapons had been placed in the hands of 

 Man which he has not the strength, nor the knowledge, 

 nor the rectitude of will to wield aright. It is in this 

 contrast that he stands alone. In the light ot this con- 

 trast we see that the corruption of human nature is not a 

 mere dogma of theology, but a fact of science. The^ na- 

 ture ot man is seen to be corrupt not merely as compared 

 with some imaginary standard which is supposed to have 

 existed at some former time, but as compared with 

 a standard which prevails in every other department of 

 Nature at the present day. We see, too, that the anal- 

 ogies of creation are adverse to the supposition that this 

 condition of things was original. It looks as if some- 

 thing exceptional must have happened. The rule 

 throughout all the rest of Nature is, that every creature 

 does handle the gifts which have been given to it with 

 a skill as wonderful as it is complete, for the highest 

 purposes of its being, and for the fulfillment of its part 

 in the unity of creation. In Man alone we have a being 

 in whom his adjustment is imperfect — in whom this 

 faculty is so detective as often to miss its aim. Instead 

 of unity of law with certainty and harmony of result, 

 we have antagonism of laws, with results, at the best, of 

 much shortcoming and otten of hopeless failure. And 



7 Malthus, 6th Edition, vol. i., p. 39. 



the anomaly is all the greater when we consider that this 

 failure affects chiefly that portion of Man's nature 

 which has the direction of the res: — on which the whole 

 result depends, as regards his conduct, his happiness, 

 and his destiny. The general fact is this: — First, that 

 Man is prone to set up and to invent standards of obli- 

 gations which are low, false, mischievous, and even ruin- 

 ous ; and secondly, that when he has become possessed 

 of standards of obligation which are high, and true, 

 beneficient, he is prone first, to fall short in the observ- 

 ance of the , and next, to suffer them, through various 

 processes o l decay, to be obscured and lost. 



ASTRONOMY. 



THE LICK OBSERVATORY. 



Work upon Mount Hamilton, the site of the new Lick 

 Observatory, has been pushed forward as rapidly as could 

 be expected, and it is probable that the building will be 

 sufficiently finished to receive a portion of the instru- 

 ments in the fall of this year. For instrumental equip- 

 ment, a 12-inch Clark glass and tube, made for Dr. 

 Draper, has been bought, and will be fitted to an equato- 

 rial mounting. A 4-inch transit, made on the same 

 patterns as the 4-inch meridian circle of Princeton College, 

 with a few changes introduced by Professors Nevvcomb 

 and Holden, has been ordered from Fauth & Co., of 

 Washington. It will be sent to California in October, 

 and will probably be mounted by Prof. Holden, and used 

 by him in connection with the 12-inch equatorial, to ob- 

 serve the transit of Mercury on November 7, 1881. A 

 Repsolds meridian circle of six inches aperture will soon 

 be ordered, as well as a small vertical circle. Alvan Clark 

 & Sons, of Cambridge, have received the contract to 

 make a glass three feet in diameter, at a cost of $50,000. 

 The equatorial mounting for this immense objective (44 per 

 cent, more powerful than that ordered for the Russian 

 Government, with aperture of 30 inches, and 100 p< r cent, 

 more powerful than the great Washington refractor) is 

 not yet provided for. Proposals will be obtained from the 

 principal instrument makers of Europe and this country, 

 and the mechanical part will probably cost as much as the 

 optical. 



General plans for the buildings were prepared by Pro- 

 fessors Newcomb and Holden, in August, 1880, and will 

 govern the more detailed plans which are to be prepared 

 by the architects. A dome for the 12-inch equatorial is 

 already in process of construction. 



The work done upon Mt. Hamilton by Mr. Burnham 

 in the summer of 1879 shows how well suited the high 

 situation is for astronomical observations, and much will 

 be expected from an observatory so well provided with 

 powerful instruments. 



"The 'Astronomische Nachrichten.'— Contrary 

 to what has been lately stated, it appears that this peri- 

 odical will still be edited by Dr. C. F. W. Peters, who has 

 for some time conducted it, and we are informed there is 

 a probability that Prof. Kruger may set afloat a new as- 

 tronomical journal under his own management." — 

 Nature. 



Site for the New Naval Observatory. — The 

 Commission appointed by Congress to select a site for 

 the proposed new Naval Observatory has purchased the 

 Barbour estate, in Georgetown, at a cost ot $63,000. A 

 detailed description of the location will shortly appear. 



w. c. w. 



Washington, March 10, 1881. 



We notice, in the last number of the Chemical News, 

 that Mr. M. Benjamin, to whom we are indebted for 

 notices of the American Chemical Society, was elected a 

 Fellow of the Chemical Society, London. 



