We shall not venture upon any criticisms of this remarkable book, which will be scarcely less useful as exercising thought, if many of the hypotheses which it suggests should prove to be unfounded. We will merely make one remark as to a point on which Mr. Darwin has naturally been exposed to much hostile criticism. He endeavours to account for the origin of the moral sense by which, according to many thinkers, man is most mainly distinguished from the whole brute creation. We are of opinion-and we could assign our reasons were it worth while-that Mr. Darwin has fallen into some confusion of language, and perhaps into some positive errors, from the use of a terminology with which the course of his studies have not rendered him so familiar as he is with all matters of natural science. At the same time, Mr. Darwin's views on this question are of special interest to many readers, because they point to the direction in which future controversies on such subjects are likely to extend. Mr. Darwin gives some highly ingenious explanations of the mode in which a moral sense may be presumed to have originated. If his account were adequate and satisfactory, we should be in a position to account for many things which puzzle previous inquirers; but even if that very large assumption were granted, there would still be room for the old controversy between the utilitarian and the intuitional schools, though It would take different forms, and be decided by different tests.

Mr. Darwin's theory, if completely established, would by no means prove that we have not an intuitive perception of certain moral truths, but would explain in what way those intuitions had been generated. The scientific reader of discussions would in many respects transform the problem; but the old divergence of opinion would still be true.

Without following out this line of thought, we may remark that considerations of this kind might serve to obviate the dread which some persons appear to entertain of the possible results of Mr. Darwin's investigations. In this as in other cases it is conceivable that men of science may explain how certain instincts gradually evolve themselves; but they are by no means the nearer to proving that the instincts have not a real existence, or that they do not possess all the value that has ever been attributed to them..

Various attacks have been made upon Mr. Darwin's theory, and few of the antagonists on either side have succeeded in rivalling the admirable candour and calmness which this great originator of thought has preserved in the midst of the warfare which he has.stirred up in every direction. We shall content ourselves with noticing a contribution to a discussion more or less allied to Mr. Darwin's speculations, which has been carried on with an acrimony which is certainly to be regretted. The old feud between the disciples of Pasteur and Pouchet has recently been renewed in England; and Dr. Bastian, in his recently published book, takes the side of the possibility of spontaneous generation. He professes to have taken living organisms from flasks that had been a few months before hermetically sealed and heated to temperatures varying from 260° to 302° Fahrenheit.

But the theory is advanced by some of his antagonists that he was not sufficiently careful to exclude air, and that, in fact, his flasks not being hermetically sealed, he was liable to the same line of criticism as Pasteur in the early stages of the controversy applied to Pouchet. There is too much of the argumentum ad hominem in this style of answer, and the attribution of carelessness or error to other observers will not by any means suffice to end

the present dispute. In fact, we fail to discern in the sixty-five detailed experiments which are recounted at such enormous length in the present work, any thing like the carelessness or rashness which some months ago were attributed to Dr. Bastian. So far as appears, the experiments have been free from mistake; and we only see two ways of disproving the facts which appear on the face of the present work. The first is by supposing that Dr. Bastian has not duly closed the flasks so as to exclude the air; and the second is by accepting the theory that an observer, who is so renowned as a microscopical discoverer, really does not know a Bacterium when he sees it. The latter theory cannot readily be accepted. Is the former more probable? Here again there is no apparent probability that Dr. Bastian has become a victim to self-delusion with regard to the perfect closure of the flasks. Therefore we cannot yet awhile assent to the condemnation of his facts.

Four theories with respect to the origin of these simple forms of life have been promulgated. 1. That they are independent organisms derived by fission or gemmation from pre-existing Bacteria or Torulæ. 2. That they represent subordinate stages in the life history of other organisms (fungi), from some portion of which they have derived their origin, and into which again they tend to develope. These methods are termed those of homogenesis, the former being called direct and the latter indirect. 3. That they may have a heterogenetic mode of origin, owing to the more complete individualization of minute particles of living matter entering into the composition of higher organisms, both animal and vegetable. 4. That they may arise de novo in certain fluids containing organic matter, independently of pre-existing living things (archebiosis). The last theory is what Dr. Bastian thinks he has proved, and what at present we are unable to disprove, except by the arguments to which we have above alluded.

We will venture to touch briefly upon a question of a very different kind. It has lately been attempted by Mr. Crookes and others to subject the phenomena generally known as spiritualistic to a series of scientific tests. A society, which describes itself as the Dialectical Society of London, has appointed a committee, who held a number of sittings, and produced a quantity of evidence on the subject. A very admirable article, subsequently acknowledged to be from the pen of Dr. Carpenter, dealt with the whole question in the Quarterly Review for October. Athough the Dialectical Society is not constituted in such a manner as to command very much respect from careful observers, it is still remarkable in many ways that a superstition of this kind should be flourishing in modern society. Mr. Crookes, too, is a man of a certain scientific reputation, and the name of "psychic force" which he has invented, and which heads a pamphlet published by him, has done something to force the matter on public attention by giving it a certain scientific flavour.

All kinds of extraordinary and absurd manifestations have been witnessed by persons who report them to the Dialectical Society. Ghosts have been seen walking about in rooms. Mr. Home, the well-known medium, has been lengthened and shortened; he has been carried out of the window of a room at a height of seventy feet above a street, and carried back again through another window. These stories, and stories such as these are gravely refuted and made the subjects of serious argument.

It is difficult to speak or think with any thing else than contemptuous pain of proceedings such as those described in this report. Mr. Crookes has, however, given some prominence to alleged physical movements in solid bodies, which he believes can be produced by the emission from the body, and apparently from the finger-ends, of a pseudo-force unknown and undescribed. His experiments, set forth in a recent number of the Quarterly Journal of Science, have an appearance of precision. We see, however, in the primary point, that no means are taken to interpose between the mover and the thing to be moved an indicator of any kind. The index is, so to speak, attached to the wrong end of the beam; and, to speak frankly also, experiments conducted by Mr. Home, as these were, are by that very fact now suspicious. Mr. Crookes' papers have been thought by investigators as impartial as Professor Stokes not to be worthy of discussion before serious scientific societies; but it would be well that they should be submitted to competent independent scrutiny. If they have any value, they lead to a branch of physical investigation widely different from spiritualism. According to the existing data of science, it seems improbable that any emission of transformed electric or other currents from the human body can produce under the stated conditions the appreciable dynamic effect which his index shows; but the improbability is not inherent, inasmuch as the constant correlation of electric effects with every muscular contraction is a matter of familiar knowledge and a part of the teaching of every physiological primer. The improbability is of that secondary character which arises from the collision of Mr. Crookes' observations with those of ordinary life, and of experiments hitherto made. That the phenomena of ordinary muscular action are attended with electric charge and discharge is a doctrine developed at length in Dr. Radcliff's recent studies in vital "electro-dynamics," and it is just possible, though unlikely, that Mr. Crookes' experiments studied in this connexion may not be without value. It is unfortunate that he has accepted for them at the hands of Mr. Cox the misnomer of "psychic force," and the scepticism with which they are regarded by experienced physicists deters us from giving much importance to them. In any case, however, they are rather curious and doubtful than incredible. They may be valueless, but they are at least removed from the supernatural and the absurd, and give no countenance to the follies which disgrace the reports of the Dialectical Society.

The British Association held its meeting at Edinburgh, and the proceedings were opened on the 3rd of August, by an address from the President, Sir W. Thompson. Sir William began by referring to the many eminent men of science who have been lost to us during the preceding twelve months; most prominent among these was Sir John Herschel, to whose eminent services the President paid an eloquent tribute. Another honour to British Science was lost in Professor De Morgan, and the President remarked that if his book on the Differential Calculus was now less studied than of old, the neglect was only due to the fact that it was not convenient for examination purposes, a remark which incidentally throws some light upon the less desirable tendencies of competitive examination. The President next referred to the services rendered by the observatory at Kew, which has now, by Mr. Gassiot's munificent gift of 10,000l., become independent of the voluntary contributions of the Association.

After referring to the useful results of the scientific labours of different

sections of the Association, and illustrating his remarks by various appropriate instances, the President proceeded to make some observations on the great problem to which we have already referred in discussing Mr. Darwin's work on the Origin of Life. He remarked that many thinkers still clung to the ancient hypothesis that dead matter may have run together, or crystallized, or fermented into "germs of life," or "organic cells," or "protoplasia." Science, he said, had brought a vast mass of inductive evidence to bear against this theory, as had been explained at great length by Professor Huxley, the previous occupant of the presidential chair. The experiments of such men as Huchet, Pasteur, and Bastian were indeed worthy of careful attention; but Sir William confessed to being deeply impressed by Professor Huxley's views, and to be ready to adopt, as an article of scientific faith, that through all space and through all time life proceeds from life, and from nothing but life. How then, he asked, did life originate on the earth? Every year thousands and millions of fragments of solid matter fall upon the earth, and it is often assumed that meteoric stones are fragments which have been broken off from larger masses and launched into space. It is as certain that collisions must occur between heavenly bodies as that ships, steered without intelligence, could not cross the Atlantic for thousands of years without them. If the earth ever meets a body of dimensions comparable to its own, whilst still clothed with vegetation, fragments, bearing seeds and animals, must be launched into space. It is probable, then, that these are countless meteoric seed-bearing bodies. If, at the present moment, there were no life on earth, and one of them fell upon it, it might lead to its being covered with vegetation. The hypothesis that life originated here from the moss-grown fragments of another world might seem wild and visionary, but Sir William maintained that it was not unscientific. In conclusion, Sir William remarked that the argument from design had been too much lost sight of in recent zoological speculations. Remarks against the frivolities of teleology, such as are found not rarely in the notes of learned commentators on "Paley's Natural Theology," had had a temporary effect in turning attention from the solid and impregnable argument so well put forward in that excellent old book. But overpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design lie all around us; and if ever perplexities, whether metaphysical or scientific, turn us away from them for a time, they come back upon us with irresistible force, showing to us through nature the influence of a free will, and teaching us that all living beings depend on one ever acting creative power.

Other papers of much interest occupied the attention of the Association on subsequent occasions. Professor Tait delivered an eloquent address, though chiefly of too technical a character for our pages. Colonel Yule discussed the state of our knowledge of the regions between India and China. Professor Abel gave a popular lecture on Explosive Compounds; Mr. Glaisher read the report of the Committee on Luminous Meteors. Mr. Pengelly and Mr. Symonds gave accounts of investigations into various bone-bearing caves. Colonel Leslie read a paper on ancient hieroglyphic sculptures, many examples of which have been found in the British islands; we have, however, no space to give any thing like a complete catalogue.

The meeting was on the whole successful, but a certain damp was thrown upon the proceedings by an unfortunate misunderstanding. The people of

Edinburgh, it seems, fancied themselves to have been slighted because the preference was given last year to Liverpool, as the place of meeting of the Association. On the present occasion, the renewed invitation came from the University, whilst the town held aloof, and consequently the members of the Association were scarcely received with that warmth of welcome to which they have been generally accustomed. On the whole, however, they cannot be said to have undergone many hardships in their pursuit of science.