has been received, we gather that the ordinary resources of the law are, as yet, equal to the occasion. If, however, it should happen by and by, that any considerable number of Churchmen come to regard this doctrine of the Real Presence as nothing less than blasphemous, there will be eruption or disruption of some sort, as there has been in days past. A note or two of this kind was sounded a while ago by the leaders of the High Church party when the verdict went against them. Last year Dr. Liddon wrote, in his letter to Sir J. T. Coleridge :-" It is a serious source of weakness to our Church at this moment that we have a Supreme Court that fails to touch the conscience of a large part of the clergy." And Dr. Pusey, about the same time, wrote:"Our forbearance is stretched more and more, till the tension may be too great. We may be driven (and God only knows how soon) to decide whether it be right and faithful to our God, 'propter vitam vivendi perdere causas,' for the sake of an establishment which has such a fleeting life, to see that wrested from us which alone gives to establishments their value. May God guide you in the coming crisis, which perhaps may come ere I depart hence, though also perhaps not." The present judgment will similarly exercise the conscience of another section of the clergy, and it is this kind of strain, first in one direction and then in another, that makes the continuance of the present state of things in the Established Church somewhat precarious. So soon as either the High Church or the Low Church conscience finds the situation positively intolerable, the great doctrinal controversy will leave the Law-courts, and enter upon a much more stirring and eventful stage.

Longer English Poems. With Notes Philological and Explanatory, and an Introduction on the Teaching of English. Edited by J. W. Hales, M.A. London: Macmillan and Co. 1872.

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TEACHERS of English will find this a suggestive and serviceable book. The poems are arranged in chronological order from Spenser to Shelley, and include a specimen or two of most of the best names between. The notes are ample and good. In connection with the increased attention now given to English literature in schools and universities, there is, we think, some danger of confounding literary history with literature itself. It is one thing for a boy to cram the dates when certain authors "flourished" and certain books were written, and another thing for him to acquire a real knowledge of the best writers, to be made familiar with the "volumes paramount" of his own language, and learn to appreciate and take pleasure in them. Mr. Hales's notes are particularly good in their references to parallel and kindred passages, and they will suggest to the student how he may form a kind of "liber poetarum of his own. We will give an example. In Milton's Hymn on the Nativity is the following stanza :

"Ring out, ye crystal spheres ;
Once bless our human ears

(If ye have power to touch our senses so),

And let your silver chime

Move in melodious time,

And let the bass of Heaven's deep organ blow,

And with your ninefold harmony

Make up full consort to th' angelic symphony."

For this "music of the spheres " the following references are given. Milton's Arcades, 1. 62-67:

"Then listen I

To the celestial Syrens' harmony,

That sit upon the nine infolded spheres," &c.

Comus, 112-114:

"The starry quire,

Who in their nightly watchful spheres

Lead in swift round the months and years."

Two other passages from Comus are given, and then, Paradise Lost, v. 618:

"And in their motions harmony Divine

So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear
Listens delighted."

Then follow the lines from the Merchant of Venice":

"There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,

Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins," &c.

with other references to passages in Shakespeare. Then come the lines from Hudibras :

"The music of the spheres,

So loud it deafens mortal ears,

As wise philsophers have thought,

And that's the cause we hear it not."

The list is not yet exhausted; but this will show that these notes cannot fail to interest a student or help a teacher.

Introduction to the Study of Biology. By H. Alleyne Nicholson, M.D., D. Sc., M.A., &c., Professor of Natural History and Botany in University College, Toronto. London: Blackwood. 1872.

Ir requires courage and strong conviction on the part of a rising zoologist to write a book like this. It is a book destined in its own department to fashion the world for its fame, and not its fame for the world. It embraces the latest discoveries and the most philosophical inferences in biology, and yet it ventures to question the truth of popular materialistic theory. The habitual method of certain scientific and

quasi-scientific journals, is to treat with contempt every intellectual effort that runs counter to the popular philosophy. But a decided reaction is apparent, and Professor Nicholson's valuable little book is in every sense opportune. Its accuracy in all established matters the most inveterate opponent would not venture to question. Every page gives evidence of unwearying care. Without passion or prejudice, the author perceives the real bearing of his subject on human thought and action, and chooses to ignore the authority of popular speculators, and adhere only to facts. The bearing of biological questions on moral and religious thought can hardly be exaggerated. Their influence direct and indirect is important beyond measure, and the tendency of current biological speculation is to retard the day of the world's moral and religious liberty. Professor Nicholson's book gives a general view of vital phenomena, and is intended as a foundation for special and elaborate zoological studies. It is intended at once for the student and general reader, and we heartily commend it to both. It begins with a discussion of the difference between the vital and the non-vital, and, following out the distinctions between animals and plants, proceeds to state with exquisite clearness the principles of biological classification. The elementary chemistry of living beings, physiological function, and the laws of development follow; these being succeeded by masterly chapters on spontaneous generation, on the origin of species, and on distribution in space and time.

The chief feature of the book is its determination to treat as science only what is known, and to relegate speculation to its proper place. In dealing with the question of a physical basis of life, the author admits the universality of the proteine compound in which life inheres. "It does not appear that the phenomena of life can be manifested by any and every form of matter; and a very little reflection ought to convince us that it would be very surprising if the reverse were the case.' Chemical and electrical phenomena require their own proper media for manifestation; and the very fact that there are electrical non-conductors, proves that a certain "physical basis" is required for their disclosure. Theoretically, therefore, a "matter of life" might have been safely anticipated. Still it has not been proved that the protoplasm of Huxley, the bioplasm of Beale, has an unvarying chemical composition, while other substances, as the mineral salts, are essential to life. That this proteine compound is a condition of life is consequently demanded by the fact; but that it is the cause of vitality is wholly another question. To say that life results from the combined properties of the albuminous compound, just as water results from the combined qualities of oxygen and hydrogen, is in no way warranted by the facts. That there is an intimate connection between "protoplasm" and life is all that the evidence of the case justifies us in asserting. We have no right to affirm that it is even a property of the matter in which it inheres. He who asserts that the phenomena are the result of a vital force is equally logical. Neither can do more than infer, but the more philosophical view as to the nature of the

connection between life and its material basis, is the one which regards vitality as something superadded and foreign to the matter, by which vital phenomena are manifested. And we have no more right to assume that vitality ceases to exist when its physical basis is removed, than we have to assume the non-existence of electric force because there is no conductor to display it. The simplest vital phenomenon has in it something over and above the merely chemical and physical forces which we can demonstrate in the laboratory. Digestion, for instance. Undoubtedly there is much in it that is purely chemical; but there is much more that no chemistry can explain. The amoeba— a mere shapeless mass of moving sarcode-digests rapidly and constantly without a trace of organism! An organism when dead we assume to be chemically the same as the living organism, but we cannot prove it. An analysis of living protoplasm is impossible. That there is a force-an activity—in the vital form totally wanting in the invital, it is almost absurd to insist: what that something is we cannot tell-perhaps shall never know. To ignore its existence, however, would be to violate every canon of philosophy. Hence the "term vital force may be retained with advantage.' The assertion that living matter differs in its chemical properties from the same matter dead, is indeed, no longer an assumption. Dr. Beale has proved that it has the power of taking up and becoming tinted by an ammoniacal solution of carmine, a property wholly wanting in the same plasm when dead. The attempt, therefore, of certain teachers to make us believe that they explain vital operations, is to be reprehended by every scientific biologist. What do we really know of the vital energy of a plant from being told that carbonic acid, water, and ammonia are by the agency of light brought into a chemico-vital affinity by which the components of the plant are held together and increased? Is it not transparent that the conditions of the phenomena and their cause are confounded? The chemical and calorific rays of the sun are, of course, essential to the performance of vital function in a plant; but the real difficulty is to know how the transformation is effected. How do plants convert sunlight and dead elements into vital form? To tell us in the most philosophical verbiage that they do so is not to explain it. How on the chemico-physical theory of vitality can it be explained that the protoplasm of an acorn builds itself into an oak by means of sunlight and inorganic components, and the protoplasm of an amoeba -in all respects essentially the same in chemical composition and structure has no power whatever to do so? And how are the phenomena of reproduction, whether animal or vegetable, to be interpreted or explained apart from a true vital agency? "In the present state of our knowledge . . . we must conclude that we cannot refer all the forces which we see at work in . . . an organism to known chemical or physical forces. Even those we do know act with the utmost unlikeness in the vital and the non-vital, as well as in the plant and the animal; while, if they could be proved to be wholly chemico-physical, the process of elaboration cannot be compared with that with which we are familiar in the laboratory."

In a chapter on the "Differences between Animals and Plants," Dr. Nicholson insists on retaining and giving its due importance to what is known, rather than removing landmarks solely at the bidding of current theory. He rejects the proposal of Hackel for the establishment of a fourth kingdom in nature. Because the German naturalist -essentially a "system"-maker-finds that there are enormous numbers of organisms, discoverable by means of the microscope chiefly, which are so little known to us that we are unable to decide whether they be vegetable or animal, he proposes to make a new kingdom called protista, relying for its characteristics on the fact that the organisms it includes are doubtful. The weakness of this proposal has been more than once pointed out by English naturalists, and Professor Nicholson wisely adopts the division into vegetable and animal, carefully pointing out the lines along which they recede from and approach each other.

The chapter on Homology is one that must be read with interest by every biologist; and the more advanced evolutionists will find in it matters which, though briefly put, deserve their attention. Herbert Spencer's attempt to explain the (evolutional) "cause" of the "lateral homology," or structural identity of parts on two sides of the body in large groups of animals, is questioned and disproved with remarkable force; and Mr. Ray Lancaster's attempt to introduce into biology new words which of necessity imply an acceptance of the theory of evolution, is shown to be unnecessary so far as the science itself is concerned, and utterly inadmissible when subjected to severe analysis.

The chapter on classification is in every sense excellent, and the question as to how species may be defined is dealt with most carefully. The Professor insists on the sterility of "hybrids," and claims that the only definition of species which science can adopt is one which implies no theory. He considers a species "an assemblage of individuals which resemble each other in their essential characters, are able, directly or indirectly, to produce fertile individuals, which do not (as far as human observation goes) give rise to individuals which vary from the general type through more than certain definite limits.”

The most inefficient portion of the book is that which deals with the elementary chemistry of living beings. It is accurate, but wanting in detail. "Reproduction" is most comprehensively treated, and occupies a considerable portion of the book. It is a chapter which we envy the general reader-not before acquainted with the facts-the pleasure of reading.

Spontaneous generation of course claims consideration in a treatise of this sort, and this claim is carefully and dispassionately met. The most important of Dr. Bastian's experiments-intended to establish the hypothesis of the non-vital origin of lowly vital forms- -are looked at in all their bearings, and some very cogent reasons given for believing that some fallacy lurks under the experiments." The article on the "Origin of Species" we earnestly commend to all thoughtful readers. It is not polemic. No side is taken-it would have been

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