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Nature very kindly upholds the really religious man whose faith abides in a fixed order, by the mathematical endowment.

That faithful soul, Constance Naden, says: "As mathematics and medicine had been the parents of science, so now (in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) they fostered and nourished its failing life. Progress in the practical arts also had a beneficent effect. In all cases,' says Dr. Whewell, 'the arts are prior to the related sciences. Art is the parent, not the progeny of science; the realization of principles in practice forms part of the prelude, as well as of the sequel, of theoretical discovery.' 'It is true that,' as he adds, 'a practical assumption of a principle does not imply a speculative knowledge of it, but it does imply a practical knowledge, in which the speculative knowledge lies latent, ready to be disentangled by the first mind which sees a problem in the familiar facts. Indeed, the inductive process which leads to invention is analagous to the inductive process which leads to discoveries. In the former, different ways of doing something have to be tried till one succeeds; in the latter, different ways of thinking something have to be tried till one proves in accordance with fact. But the doing involves some thinking, and the thinking must be verified by doing- that is, by experiment. So that true inductive principles lie hidden in the procedure of the ingenious craftsman, waiting to be brought into consciousness and systematically applied by some intellect more inquiring than the rest.' Constance C. W. Naden, "Induction and Deduction," p. 32.

These long quotations are for the purpose of making clear to you that the method is an art.

Architectonic. A building process. A way of doing a thing. When properly built, the thing thinks. These thinking things (formal concepts) are constructed on geometric lines and after mathematical specifications. It is a practical application of a craft. A new craft, to be sure, but nevertheless the craftsman, as such, is nothing but a builder. The organic nature of signs has been taught for thousands of years, but that verbal signs might be subjected to mathematical formulæ has, to the best of my knowledge and belief, never been demonstrated, although Liebnitz made the attempt.

Miss Naden says: "Copernicus was not the author of the heliocentric doctrine, in which he had been anticipated by Pythagoras, Seleucus, and others; but he was the author of the heliocentric theory. That is, he first worked ont the problem mathematically, deduced the consequences of the hypothesis, and compared the suppostitious motions with the motions actually observed." Induction and Deduction, p. 47.

Your patience may be tested, but am extremely desirous that you may see that signs, as thought material, may be shown to be posit-able

in vital form thinking things. This method is not doctrinally original, but it is theoretically.

As a thing, we inust go back to the really "a priori" external for our explanation. Nature's "a priori," not the metaphysician's, which is really nature's "a posteriori." An explanation, however, is formed of this "a posteriori" stuff signs. What we do is to take signs and treat them as physical elements, atoms. By bringing them into certain positions they form things. They molecularize, so to speak. Form is Ion-ation. Ion-ation is a term representative of four kinds of motion, a bi polar process, which is demonstrated as follows:

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Thus matter is Corpor-ation (body-ation), the condition upon which Corporation depends is Connation (born together), and is its Static Aspect or Cause. The work done by Corporation is Combination, and is its Dynamic Aspect, or Effect. The vertical line symbolizes the magnetic force, the horizontal the electrical energy.

By referring to the Formula you will see that the term Matter polarizes into Force and Energy; i. e., that is the form our knowledge takes in the understanding of it. As "up" is to Hill, so is "Energy to Matter; and as "Down" is to Hill, so is "Force" to Matter,opposite and equal. Here, however, we double this. We have a bipolar process. An understanding of an understanding. So simply formulated that when mentally grasped we read Lotze's discussion of Things with an interest which rises to a relish. This ex-plan-ation (out-spread-working) of a thought-unit by the thought process is only a relation of a relation. Only a historical process. Man only rises above other animals by working historically. But History is Re-lation. He locates the future by relation; i. c., he has the past and the present, and by geometrizing (surveying) gets the other. J. J. VAN NOstrand.

(To be continued.)

THE FORMAL CONCEPT. This work by J. J. Van Nostrand, which was noticed in the June number of this magazine, is a new system of logic developed by the author, and is attracting the attention of the thinking classes. We are greatly indebted in a complimentary way to Mr. C. R. McLain, of Chicago, Ill., who furnished nearly the entire cost of publication of the work, for a limited number of copies for our readers, and we here in behalf of our patrons return our kind thanks. We are studying the Lessons in the Formal Concept, and publish the same with the consent of the author, trusting our readers will become interested and instructed in them also. The chart, "Microcosmos, a Theory of the Mental Constitution by the use of the Formal Concept," is a fountain of knowledge in Sematology.

(Vol. XIV, p. 184.) Elihu BenMaine, the son of Israel Wash

ELIHU BENJAMIN WASHBURNE. jamin Washburne was a native of burne. He was born in 1816 and died in 1887. He and his brothers Israel and Cadwallader were at one time in Congress together. A fourth brother, William D. Washburne, also a candidate from California, was not elected.

A. WILDER, M. D.

EPIGRAM ON ARISTOPHANES. Aristophanes is preserved in the "Anthologia": "Once did the Graces wish for a shrine which never should perish, And as they sought, they the soul found of Aristophanes."

The following epigram in honor of

LIFE DEFINED. Life is the definite adjustment of different organic changes, and continues or ceases according to the differences in its adjustment with the changes of the environment.-E. F. Goodwin, M.D.

"Only those who lovingly and willingly live to benefit the world. find true happiness in the bosom of Nature and of God.". - Davis's Arabula, p. 402.

"The voice of Truth is herad whispering its first melodies in the soul's intuitions.”—Davis's Inner Life, p. 67.

H. M. Taber has these quotations at the beginning of his essay on "In Place of Christianity

"There will be a new church, founded on moral science."-Emerson. "Religion is dying, but humanity is taking its place."-E. Wright. "Theology is passing away and virtue is taking its place."-M. M. Mangasarian.

DOES THE MOON TURN ON ITS OWN AXIS? This is the final line of a treatise, "Astronomy, or the Solar System Explained," by Richard Banks, London, 1829. This question, however, is not denied in work itself. Axis.

In nearly all treatises on astronomy it is stated that the moon rotates once on its own axis in making one revolution around the earth. Yet there are other works which teach that it does not rotate on its own axis at all. More or less of the controversy depends upon the definition of the words rotation and revolution which in quite a number of astronomical works are used interchangeably. There is a work, "A Popular Inquiry into the Moon's Rotation upon her Axis," by Johannes Von Gumpach. London, 1856; pp. 178. This work endeavors to refute the modern works of the rotation of the moon on its axis.

The Scientific American office, New York, published one number of a magazine of science and the useful arts, in June, 1868, entitled The Wheel. This number (only one published) contains 72 pages, and nearly one-fourth of it, illustrated with 14 diagrams, is devoted to the discussion and solution of the following question, which originally ap peared in the Scientific American, June 1, 1867:

"How many revolutions, upon its own axis, will a wheel make in rolling once around a fixed wheel of the same size"?

The editor answered one, but several correspondents took exceptions and answered two. Hence the publication of The Wheel.

We will give a few quotations from several works on astronomy that will show there are different theories on the question of rotation. "The moon revolves round our globe in a period of 27d. 7h. 43m., and rotates upon her axis in precisely the same interval, whence it occurs that only one-half of the moom can ever be seen from the Earth."-Hind, in Johnson's Atlas of Astronomy, p. 5.

"The moon revolves with a uniform motion, from west to east, about an axis nearly perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, in the same time that she makes a revolution in her orbit.-Gummere, Elementary Treatise on Astronomy, pp. 109, 110.

I am one of the many who have studied the laws of, and the terms employed in, dynamics who have not been able to understand how the term 'rotation' can be applied to the moon's motion. I am, also, one of the few who have presumed, and have had the courage, for many years, to question the correctness of the statement, that 'the

moon has an axis of rotation.'-Evan Hopkius, London Times, Apri 23rd, 1856."

"May I request the favor of a small place in your columns to inquire the grounds upon which almost all school astronomy books assert that the moon rotates on her axis?

"On the contrary, if the moon turned at all on her axis, a little consideration will show that all her surface would be successively shown. to the earth, and that it is because she has no rotary motion at all that one side only is seen by us."-Felinger Symons, London Times, April 3, 1856.

"The Moon represents not integral but partial rotation; it turns, not on its own, but on a foreign, axis. It is a law of planetary rotation as exemplified by all primary planets, that its period shortens proportionally to the condensation of its volume. The Moon's extant equator is less than one-eighth of its primal dimension, and therefore if its nominal rotation were axial in the same sense as is predicable of primary planets, the period thereof should have been shortened from 27.321 to less than 7 days; just as that of the Earth, because of the condensation of its volume, has been shortened from 30.9 days to a single day. The fact that the Moon simulates rotation as tardily now as at the epoch of its birth, when its diameter was 8 times as large, refutes the notion of its rotation at all in the proper acceptation of the term. It does not turn on its axis, but on the antiquated axis of its terrestrial antecedent-that of the Earth when about to let go an eloping rim of its equator, as germ of the Moon." -Pericosmic Theory, by George Stearns, p. 210.

"HEAP COALS OF FIRE ON HIS HEAD." (Vol. XIV, p. 184.) It is perhaps nnnecessary to interpret the text (Romans xii, 20) strictly by the import of Proverbs x xv, 22, except the sense shall imperatively require it. A literal rendering from the Hebrew text is as follows: "For thou art putting coals on his head (rasu) and the Lord recompenseth thee." The Greek is a little different: "For doing this, thou heapest coals of fire upon his head, and the Lord repayeth good to thee." The passage in the Epistle is a literal transcript. Augustine of Hippo considers the heaping of coals to denote the producing of deep pangs of repentance. Theodoret, however, held that it implied that when a man foremeant revenge for himself, God eventually imposed a severer penalty. Doubtless, Theoderet and Chrysostom are right in their exegesis. It is not necessary to hold the quoted passage strictly to the meaning which it had when first used. The context in Romans xii is in keeping and favors our conclusions. A. WILDER.

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