Editorial Comment. 51 
it appreciates and seeks such successional relations and harmonic 
combinations of tones as are congruous with each other and 
with our musical apperceptions; and such as are congruous 
with the thought of feeling which the composer seeks to ex- 
press. A good artistic taste understands what forms and colors 
harmonize with the common forms of beauty and fitness im- 
planted in the soul. It is preeminently literary taste which the 
prevailing culture claims to shape and perfect. Indisputably, 
such cultiire, besides increasing the happiness of its subject, 
confers a means of influence which improves the scholar's 
chances of success in the battles of life. Such control of the 
adversities of situation is therefore, eagerly to be sought in our 
professed systems of general culture. 
The foregoing may be regarded as an enumeration and char- 
acterization of all the important powers which fall within the 
scope of intellectual culture. The term, so far as I know, is 
not employed, and cannot be employed, in any sense involving 
more than the educational discipline of these. What our lin- 
guistic and literary friends mean by "culture" cannot refer to 
any occult influences bearing in any other direction than the 
improvement of these powers. It seems superfluous to empha- 
size so plain a proposition ; but it becomes desirable to bring to 
the light of day and to the terms of definite statement, the 
whole secret and mystery of "liberal culture." 
It is intended next, to present an analysis of the content of 
geological science, and then an examination of the nature of the 
demands which it makes upon the powers of the student. 
EDITORIAL COMMENT. 
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN; SOME INCIDENTAL RESULTS 
OF THE DISCUSSION. 
"On earth nothing great but man; 
In man nothing great but mind." 
Such was the inscription placed by Sir William Hamilton 
above the door of his lecture room — very appropriate, too, for 
