Answer.—Probably all the States have pharmacy laws; that is, laws regulating the compounding and sale of drugs, but these are loosely administered in most States, the laws themselves being radically defective. Most prescription clerks pick up their knowledge of pharmacy between errands and “by practice,” as it is called, without even an elementary knowledge of chemistry or any systematic course of training. There are in all fourteen schools of pharmacy in the United States; 1 in San Francisco, 1 in Chicago, 1 in Louisville, 1 in New Orleans, 1 in Baltimore, 1 in Boston, 1 in Ann Arbor, Mich., 1 in St. Louis, 2 in New York City, 1 in Cincinnati, 1 in Philadelphia, 1 in Pittsburg, 1 in Nashville, and 1 in Washington. All told, they had only 1,347 students in 1880, of whom they graduated but 186. There are 284 retail drug stores in Chicago, and it is estimated that there are more than 1,600 in the State and about 25,600 such stores in the United States with twice that number of persons compounding medicines; so that it is a clear case that comparatively few druggists and prescription clerks are properly educated for their duties.
AGNOSTICISM.
Arthur, Ill.
Be so good as to define the word “agnosticism,” as used in theological or religio-scientific discourses. I have examined several dictionaries and one encyclopedia, and have failed to find the word.
E. J. A.
Answer.—Agnosticism is a sort of supernatural knownothingism. It is true that this word is not defined in either Webster’s or Worcester’s unabridged dictionaries, except in the supplements to the latest editions, and does not appear in the regular order of subjects in the popular encyclopedias. It is derived from a Greek word that signifies “to know not.” Agnosticism then, as used by Herbert Spencer and his disciples, is the doctrine that, professing ignorance of the supernatural, neither asserts nor denies the existence of a personal Deity, and claims that such doctrine can be neither proved nor disapproved, because of the insufficiency of the evidence furnished by rational and material nature to warrant a positive conclusion: or, as others say, because of the necessary limits of the human mind. Agnosticism is opposed both to the positive assertion of the skeptic, who denies the existence of a personal God, and the opposite declaration of the Christian church, or dogmatic theism, affirming such existence.
PTOLEMY PHILADELPHUS.
Give a brief sketch of Ptolemy Philadelphus, a celebrated King of Egypt, often referred to in books and lectures.