Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 13.djvu/762

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

likeness, and no confusion is made. What holds good of men holds good equally of all other beings. I have observed this genesis in myself; formerly rather hostile to dogs, now that I have a dog myself, I feel well inclined toward the whole canine species, but most to that part of it which has some characteristic feature in common with my favorite. This, then, is the genesis of the benevolent disposition, that, after having by confusion become well inclined toward certain things, we feel the same benevolence toward each of their attributes; when we find these attributes in other things, we feel equally well inclined toward them, and by confusion extend this benevolence to the individual possessing the attribute. Hence it follows that the greater the diversity among the individuals toward whom we acquire a benevolent feeling when young, the wider the range of our sympathies, of the benevolence we feel at once toward those with whom we come in contact—a fact of some importance in educational science.

I do not know whether I shall have convinced my reader of the soundness of my theory. Limited space and an inadequate power over the language may have prevented me from attaining this end. But the question is so important that even the mere suggestion of a possible theory might be accepted as of some use toward the final solution of the problem, and as such I offer the foregoing pages.—Mind.

SKETCH OF CLAUDE BERNARD.

CLAUDE BERNARD died at Paris, in February, 1878, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. The nineteenth century produced Magendie, Flourens, Johannes Müller, Charles Bell, Marshall Hall, and others, who made great discoveries in human physiology; but none of these great men did more for the advancement of knowledge in this direction than the subject of our sketch. Bernard was a pure physiologist; and, in his day, he was recognized as the great exponent of the experimental school. His name is connected with important discoveries in nearly every department of human physiology, and the influence of his method has borne fruit wherever this science is studied.

The career of Claude Bernard is a most interesting and instructive chapter in the history of the progress of physiology for the past thirty-five years. The accounts of his life which have appeared in the French journals give little information with regard to his early life. It is simply stated that he was born in the village of Saint-Julien, near Villefranche (Rhône), on the 12th of July, 1813, where he studied pharmacy. When about twenty-one years of age, he went to Paris with the manuscript of a tragedy. He had written a vaudeville, which had been represented at Lyons; it is not said with what success, but prob-