independent branches of science. His example was operative everywhere, as that of one of the most self-active masters in the shop. He has been called vain and selfish; but his vanity was never so strong as to overcome his love of the truth, and his selfishness never prevented his fostering all budding talent and joyfully greeting every advance in knowledge. He refused high positions, so strongly was his innate inclination turned toward the advancement of knowledge. Long after he had become one of the recognized teachers of mankind, he did not cease to learn; but he learned as an investigator learns; and, even as against the most adept, he never gave up the right of testing by his own proofs. It was thus that we learned to know Alexander von Humboldt. His frame was bent under the burden of years and labors, but his spirit was high-set, and his eyes still looked clearly into the world. He was valuable to us as one who had the highest knowledge, and was at the same time perfectly discreet, as a high-priest of truth and humanity, as a true friend of civic freedom. Feeling this, we have erected his monument. May it be a symbol to many generations of the efforts of this age!"
The Physicians' Part in Evolution.—The "Lancet" has been asked, "Why, if it be natural and expedient that only the 'fittest' should survive, are we [the medical men] as a profession chiefly interested in prolonging the lives of those who have been rendered unfit by disease or accident?" It admits that, "if it were really a fact that the whole business of our lives, the work to which we devote the best of our strength and intelligence, had for its object to antagonize the natural course of progress as regards the race, although compassion for the individual might impel us to continue the effort, it would certainly damp the ardor of our enterprise to reflect that those we are striving to keep alive ought in the interests of posterity to be left to die." The seeming paradox the "Lancet" reasons is, however, in truth a fallacy. It is founded on an imperfect view of the inter-relations of the world. "Survival of the fittest" is not the same thing in its result as "adaptation to circumstances." Development, through and by the environment, is the method of Nature, but this does not necessitate that man should be the creature of circumstances. The environment is not a constantly progressive agency of development. It is itself subject to the law of survival. It can not, therefore, be absolutely or abstractly true that the fittest for the existing conditions of life in any particular place or epoch ought to survive. It is wholly out of our power to determine whether the particular type of development which seems to be making its way in the world and asserting its superiority by survival, and is for a time regarded as normal, is the best type, or that which is destined to endure and be perfected. The surroundings of life are progressively changing as well as the subjects of life. There is a perpetual struggle for supremacy between the two, and it is always an open question whether the resultant of this struggle will be found to embody a greater or less modification of subject or circumstance. "Our duty as practitioners of the art of healing does not relate to the surroundings, except in so far as these may be regarded a tributary to the central fact of life. If we can modify the conditions and circumstances of existence so as to render life easier, it is in our day's work to do this, and to do it heartily; but the commission we hold is to prolong life, and to fight against all that tends to destroy or weaken it. In so doing, we are not merely benefiting the individual, but the race, because, so far as we know, man is the highest created organism, and as such he is destined to dominate circumstances. For us 'man' takes the form of men. The race may be higher than the individual, but it is with the latter we have to deal."
Ancient and Modern Egyptian Schools and Libraries.—Mr. Reginald Stuart Poole has attempted to trace an historical connection between the ancient Egyptian schools and library at Heliopolis and the Alexandrian Library and University, and even the present Moslem University at Cairo. The sources of information respecting the ancient schools are chiefly old hieratic papyri, some of which were actually exercise-books of students, and they tell us of temples attached to colleges in various large towns.
