All analogy is in favour of this view of nature, and no one fact in nature is in contradiction or out of harmony therewith. Its acceptance throws light on the phenomena. of growth, repair, reproduction, development, and specific evolution. The words above cited from Professor Burdon Sanderson fully harmonise with the view. As he says, the discovery of cells served for a time to discredit vitalism, because men jumped to the absurd conclusion that, because another step in the mechanism of nature was discovered, all that was non-mechanical was thereby abolished. It is ever thus when physical science turns on a fresh limelight. Men, who have not sheltered their mental vision by a medium of philosophy, are thereby dazzled and temporarily blinded. Such fresh illuminations are continually recurring, and as soon as the retina of the intellect becomes accustomed to the novelty, the old lines, temporarily invisible, become plainly recognisable once more with, as Professor B. Sanderson says, 'the same result.' Without such a dynamical conception as we advocate, merely mechanical hypotheses show their insufficiency one after the other in an invariable succession; whereas, being reinforced by this conception, they have just that aid which is needed for their validity. Similarly the conception of dynamic principles of individuation in nature is, taken by itself, unsatisfactory and insufficient. We must, as Professor B. Sanderson says, 'ever have structure and function in harmonious correlation.' The ultimate structural elements of bodies are beyond the range of anatomical microscopic examination, as the ultimate dynamic agencies are beyond the range of detection in the physiological laboratory. Both, though thus beyond the scrutiny of the senses, are alike within the range of the fully instructed student of nature's mental vision. Here, as in so many other instances, it is only what is unpicturable to the imagination which is satisfying to the cultivated intellect.

With this conception of life we might with more hope enter upon the question of the essential nature of death. But our present space is exhausted. We can but reiterate that, thus considered, death may well be a consequence of something which makes natural revival impossible.' What that something is, physical science at least can never tell us. If life consists, as we believe it does, in the presence of an immaterial principle of individuation, then death must consist in the absence of that principle. The conception of the appearance and the disappearance of such principles in nature is obscured by the demand of the imagination to know 'where' such entities can go to, or whence' they may have come-for spatial and temporal relations are necessities of the imagination. We know, however, that the intellect can transcend the imagination, and though we cannot reply in terms which may satisfy the bond-slave of the imagination, we can do so effectually for him who has gone beyond sense to the freedom of thought of the intellect. As an illustration, we may say that when a man is reading a book by the light of a candle his eyes are fixed upon its pages, and there is so far a union between those pages and his organs of vision. Let the light be suddenly extinguished; there need be no movement of the eyes or of book, and yet that union which before existed between them has nevertheless ceased to be, and has been followed by separation. The relation which previously existed has not gone anywhere, though it has actually ceased to be, and has lapsed into a mere potential existence. Let light be restored, and the union which previously existed may be restored also. Yet if it is so restored it does not come from any place, though it none the less has definite spatial relations as soon as ever it actually exists. The categories 'whence' and 'where' apply only to material existences, and to our own imagination as being so intimately connected with existences of that kind.

We have been led to these reflections by our apprehension of the bearing upon Professor Weismann's theories of the declarations of Professor Burdon Sanderson, and before terminating this article we must cite a few more of our Oxford Professor's words of wisdom.

Speaking of merely physical inquiries, he observes:

'Let those who are so inclined cross the frontier and philosophise; but to me it appears to be more conducive to progress that we should do our best to furnish professed philosophers with such facts relating to structure and function as may serve them as aids in the investigation of those deeper problems which concern man's relation to the past, the present, and the unknown future.'

Most cordially do we echo these judicious words which form so striking a contrast to the declarations of mere physicists of the School of Haeckel, who, arrogating to themselves the title of Men of Science,' attempt dogmatically to explain the phenomena of nature, including the mind of man and all its powers and attributes, on a material basis alone, judging them exclusively by a consideration of anatomical structures and physical forces.

In concluding our brief review of Professor Weismann's hypotheses, we desire to express our thanks to the naturalist. of Freiburg for his many valuable labours. If we deem them without result as affording support to the philosophical views he appears to favour, we are none the less confident that they are full of interest and profit for biological science. Nor do we doubt but that they will also conduce to the advantage and development of the highest science also, although we are persuaded that these ultimate effects will be widely different from those which their learned and accomplished author himself contemplates. They have already had the effect of greatly stimulating inquiring minds and directing research into new channels, and we have so high an opinion of Pro

fessor Weismann, that we feel sure he will be sufficiently consoled for any non-acceptance of his special hypotheses by a clear perception that his enunciation of them has importantly accelerated and aided the pursuit and attainment of higher scientific truth.

EIMER ON GROWTH AND INHERITANCE.

Organic Evolution as the Result of the Inheritance of Acquired Characters. By Dr. G. H. THEODOR EIMER. Translated by J. T. CUNNINGHAM, M.A., F.R.S.E. London, 1890.

COULD

OULD the Father of Experimental Philosophy,' with his Novum Organum under his arm, once more visit the scenes of his earthly pilgrimage, he would certainly view with a qualified approbation the present aspect of some physical science. He would, no doubt, feel great delight at the wonderful progress which has, in so many directions, been achieved. He could hardly fail to be gratified by the tributes to his method, and still more to his spirit, which he would everywhere meet with. Nevertheless, when he came to understand what the current scientific conceptions of our day are, and what the nature of the questions most keenly debated by the men who have caught the popular ear, his surprise would not be an altogether pleasurable one. His keen disapprobation would certainly be called forth by the extent to which he would find that mere speculation had passed beyond the safe and modest bounds of either direct observation and experiment, or of sure and valid inference. In the first half of the present century the speculative dreams of our Teutonic neighbours were trite subjects of ridicule. We laughed, not without reason, at the farthing'sworth of fact on which such an unconscionable quantity of theory was too often based. But the century's second half finds not a few Englishmen following suit, although, we

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