in agreement with the facts upon which the opposing theory was based. In your article I find a statement of a theory of memory, which regards this phenomenon as an expression of "the preservation of living forms," and I find it stated that my theory of memory is inadequate. Yet I am unable to ascertain from your article what are the facts with which you support these statements. I find, in your article, statements based upon statements, and I find hypotheses evolved from preconceptions, but I do not find statements based upon facts.

Finally, Sir, I may be permitted to draw attention to the misleading nature of your dictum that "Professor Robertson's reduction of this statement to a mathematical formula, log n = Kr + b, where n is the number of syllables memorized, r the number of repetitions, and K and b are constants,....adds nothing to the explanation of the phenomenon itself." While it is perfectly true that the mathematical formulation of an hypothesis adds nothing whatever to the content of the hypothesis, yet when that mathematical formulation is applied to quantitative measurements, and the identity between the demands of theory and the facts of experiment is established, then much is added to the "explanation of the phenomenon itself," for the validity of the hypothesis is rendered proportionately the more probable. Quantitative evidence differs in no respect from qualitative evidence, save in the fact that the qualities compared are expressed in numerical units; but since the acquisition of qualitative must necessarily precede that of quantitative evidence, our knowledge of a phenomenon is the more complete the more it assumes a quantitative character.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

T. BRAILSFORD ROBERTSON.

DR. EDMUND MONTGOMERY.

Dr. Montgomery is a unique figure in the philosophical world. Having been a prominent member of the Concord School, he belongs to the history of this country, though he has contributed voluminously to the periodicals of the Old World, and is credited with having blazed new paths into biological fields.

By descent, Scotch; by birth, English; by education, German; by residence, American, Dr. Montgomery's life has been more than ordinarily eventful; yet he wrote recently in response to a request for autobiographical data: "Long ago I resolved that if a call should

come during my lifetime to furnish notes concerning my personal history, I should ask permission to keep silence with regard to everything not directly connected with my work. I think that with the exception of very eventful careers, run by extraordinary characters, it is inflicting a grievance on the reading public in these crowded times to thrust one's personal matters upon their attention. It would not greatly disappoint me to learn that my name and personalities would not long be remembered; but it would discourage me to learn that after close examination my biological researches and my thoughts proved not to have probed deeper, a little deeper than hitherto, the secrets of life and nature.”

At Frankfort young Montgomery participated enthusiastically in the German Revolution of 1848-9, following with absorbing interest the parliamentary discussions, and eventually taking active part in the building and defense of the barricades. It was here, too, he experienced struggles with the problems of religion which drove him almost to suicide. Susbsequent years brought him into intimate relations with many of the world's foremost workers in science and philosophy.

While on the Medical Staff of St. Thomas' Hospital in London, and in consequence of a dissecting wound, his lungs became effected. Residence in a milder climate seemed imperative. He went, therefore, greatly dejected, to Madeira. There his medical practice increased overmuch, and placed too great a tax upon his strength. Again changing residence, he went to the Riviera and eventually to Rome. But tiring of having no settled home, he harkened to the call of the new world, whither friends, similarly afflicted and instigated with the same ideals had preceded him, sending back most encouraging reports. In the year 1873 he purchased the Liendo Plantation near Hempstead, Texas, where he has ever since lived, enjoying until lately good health, and devoting himself to his cherished biological researches and philosophical studies.

His wife was the well-known sculptor, Elizabet Ney, whom he first met in his school-days at Heidelberg, and whom he married. at Madeira in 1863. Together they shared the joys and sorrows of life, engaged in their separate fields of labor, until June 1907, when the artist-wife, after an illness of about one month, died of heart disease. In October of that year an article by Mrs. Bride Neill Taylor appeared in The Open Court which gives a detailed account of the life and work of this famous artist, and is accompanied with illustrations of her most notable works of art.

Dr. Montgomery worked out his philosophy in a period when metaphysicism was confronted with materialism, and no middle ground was recognized. Being a physician by profession, and having specialized his work in physiology, Dr. Montgomery was too much of a naturalist to accept the idealistic horn of the dilemma, while, on the other hand, he was too well acquainted with the insufficiencies of naturalism to fall a prey to materialism. So he steered a middle course and found a solution of the world-riddle in "vital organization." His solution consisted in pointing out, with much attention to detail, the mystery of mysteries which is the wonderful activity of purpose-endowed life with its powers of choice and selfadaptation; and so it was but natural that his whole philosophy is tinged with a poetical mysticism.

The matured fruit of Dr. Montgomery's life has appeared of late in a stately octavo volume of 462 pages, entitled Philosophical Problems in the Light of Vital Organization, and we deem it proper to have a summary of the work presented by a man who, for more than twenty years, has been an ardent admirer of the Scotch-GermanAmerican hermit-philosopher of Texas. We cannot help thinking that Dr. Montgomery's solutions of the several problems are often unsatisfactory, however elegantly they may be worded. They discuss, but do not adequately answer the questions presented, and sometimes read more like prose poems than philosophy. But he assigned himself large tasks, tasks that involved intellect of an unusual type-the periscopic sweep of the pansophist and the thoroughgoing patience of the scientific specialist. In magnis voluisse sat est. So Dr. Montgomery is a remarkable figure, and as we do not mean to restrict the pages of The Monist to our own type of thinking, we gladly welcome to our columns a presentation of Dr. Montgomery's philosophy of "vital organization." EDITOR.

MALAY NOT ACCEPTABLE.

To the Editor of The Monist:

There are one or two points in your remarks in the July Monist where in my opinion you seem to err. You consider the present situation as a good parallel to that when Volapük fell. It is a parallel in one way, but a counterpart in another. The Volapük reformers did have to create an entirely new language, on a basis vastly different from Volapük. It did, of course, take them many years to bring out "Idiom Neutral," and in the meantime they could not but lose the great public. Now, the public is simply invited to choose

between two ready made dialects which are so similar that the transition can be made after an hour's study. The main idea is that many arbitrary features have been removed, and international ones, known to everybody, substituted. Both Ido and Esperanto recognize exactly the same principles, theoretically. In one sense the strenuous opposition of the Esperantists (which is much more vigorous than was that of the conservative Volapükists) is a good sign, even for the Idists. It proves that if even a language with relatively large imperfections can take root so strongly with many, Ido will, after it has overcome this resistance, be well-nigh proof against all attacks and further reform attempts, so far as they shall concern more than trifles. It may take a few years time to get there; but then things will settle down to a state of great relative stability.

As to Malay: are you not afraid that The Monist would look a little queer in that tongue? Have the Idists deserved a suggestion of that caliber, or are you in earnest in imagining that the EuropeanAmerican world would be inclined to relinquish the forms of thought that have come to them in two thousand or more years of history? You said something at a time about “improving living languages," and we are trying to present the quintessence of western European speech, with everything a priori strictly excluded. Between modern English, modern Malay, and an unheard-of though ingenious pasigraphy you seem to have touched several of the possible extremes; what's the matter with a scientifically constructed a posteriori tongue as a compromise? O. H. MAYER.

EDITORIAL REPLY.

In reply to Mr. Mayer's questions, I will say that probably the European-American world will not be any more "inclined to relinquish the forms of thought that have come to them in two thousand or more years of history," for the sake of Malay than for Esperanto or Ido. I believe that they will simply go on improving their own speech and world language will thus develop in the natural way. An artificial language should in my opinion not reject the a priori elements, but on the contrary should be based on them. It ought to be an algebra of thought constructed a priori, and the a posteriori meaning ought to be inserted just as in mathematics algebraic symbols whenever applied receive a definite meaning. Upon the whole we may leave the formation of an international language to its fate and watch the efforts of those who try to construct it artificially with critical sympathy.

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTES.

LETTERS TO CASSITE KINGS FROM THE TEMPLE ARCHIVES AT NIPPUR. By Dr. Hugo Radau, Ph. D. Price $6.00. Royal quarto; paper covers.

This is marked Volume XVII, part 1, of the Cuneiform Texts of the Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania; and in it Dr. Radau gives us 190 pages of preliminary discussion and notes, and 80 beautifully engraved plates and photogravures of 131 cuneiform texts from the archives of the temple of En-lil at Nippur in Babylonia.

The Cassite dynasty of Babylonian kings reigned for nearly 600 years; from 1814 to 1238 B. C. according to the chronology favored by Assyriologists. And yet their exact racial origin is still undetermined. They were certainly neither Sumerians nor Semites, as the character of their names sufficiently indicates. Their especial title was "King of Karduniash," a name that still awaits explanation. The most likely guess identifies them with the Kossaeans of the Zagros river, while their original home was, some say, in Northern Elam, and others even suspect Hittite affiliations.

But although Babylon was their chief and capital city, yet Nippur was ever their favorite residence; and the official title which they most greatly valued was that of shakkanakku Enlil, or “Lord Chancellor of the god Enlil." All transactions of and for the Temple needed their seal [kanaku] to be legal, so that every Cassite ruler was also, in a special sense, the High-priest-king of Nippur.

Furthermore, the period during which these tablets were written, namely 1440 to 1320 B. C., was a most vital epoch. For then, for the first time so far as we know, Babylonia came into communication with age-old Egypt on the one hand, and was attacked, on the other hand, by the newly rising power of Assyria, to this time belonging the famous Tel-el-Amarna cuneiform tablets of Amenhotep III and IV. The Berlin museum has three letters of the Cassite Kadashman-Bel to Amenhotep III; and 4 letters of Burnaburiash II, the son of Kadashman-Bel, to Amenhotep IV (the heretical Khu-en-Aten), the son of Amenhotep III, while the British Museum has a cuneiform tablet written by Amenhotep III to Kadashman-Bel; and two written by Burnaburiash to Khu-en-Aten.

Then, we have in 1421 B. C., the punitive invasion of Babylonia by Asshuruballit, King of Assyria, for the purpose of avenging the assassination by the rebellious Cassites of their king Kara-Hardash (or Kadashman Harbe), the husband of Muballitat-Sherua, the Assyrian King's daughter; and of seating upon the Babylonian throne Kuri-Galzu II, their young son and heir, who was the Assyrian King's grandson, the temporary Cassite usurper Nazi-Bugash being either driven out or slain.