The Moabite Stone: the Substance of Two Lectures. By W. Pakenham Walsh, A.M. Fifth Edition. Dublin: G. Herbert. London: Hamilton and Co. 1872.

MR. WALSH gives, in pleasant readable form, an account of the discovery of the stone, and all the information respecting it that is yet obtained. The illustrations include a reduced fac-simile engraving of the stone itself, and full-size copies of parts of the inscription, from which the reader will understand the character of the Moabite letters, and their relation to the chief alphabets with which we are acquainted. The rapid sale of this very cheap and admirable little book shows the interest that the subject has excited, and should encourage those who aim at giving to the general public the best results of Biblical learning and research.

The Haunted Crust, and other Stories. By Katherine Saunders. Two Vols. London: Strahan and Co.

THE story whose somewhat affected name gives the title to these volumes is but a poor one. Far-off suggestions of Dickens and of George MacDonald come to us as we read. The humour seems to us a little forced, and the religious tone, if not characteristic of a school, to be that which has been made popular by a well-known writer or two, and which, to our mind, is not very much better than the "goody" talk in the little books about "Tommy and Harry" that are now so out of date. The second volume, however, contains the far more powerful story, "Gideon's Rock," which was published as the Christmas number of Good Words a year or two ago, and was a deserved success.

BEVERIDGE AND FRASER, PRINTERS, PULLWOOD'S RENTS, LONDON.

THE

LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW.

JANUARY, 1873.

ART. I.-Gott und die Natur [Organisation and Life]. Von Dr. HERMANN ULRICI. Zweite Auflage. Leipzig: T. O.

Weigel.

BIOLOGICAL studies have become popular. They are no longer confined to our medical schools; they have assumed a large place in our magazine literature; they are the theme of new volumes which crowd our circulating libraries, and form the staple of current talk. Moreover, they trench deeply upon questions in which the faith and hope of mankind are involved, and have become the special champ-de-bataille on which a pantheistic and theistic philosophy most clearly assert themselves, and most strenuously contend with each other. The origin of life, the formation and development of living organisms,-their classification, their hierarchical relations to each other in their several great kingdoms, and the supreme cause of their existence in such endless variety and such marvellous order,-these are now popular questions, the answers to which press quickly onward to their last issue, that reveals their real meaning-viz., a philosophic doctrine concerning the origin, development, and destiny of man, and which consequently, more than any other in the realm of science, engross and excite the minds of educated men.

We have devoted many of our pages to these studies, and shall continue to do so. The questions we have indicated have been more profoundly investigated in Germany than in England; at least in their philosophical bearing. For inductive research in the realms both of physical science and natural history, England unquestionably bears the palm; but for the philosophical discussion which ensues as to the essential meaning, the "ultima ratio," of the facts which have been observed and arranged, Germany is as unquestion

ably supreme. We purpose, therefore, under the guidance of Dr. Ulrici, in his great work, Gott und die Natur,* to exhibit to our readers the latest results of German science with respect to the "The Principle of Life" as a specific, and, in a sense, creative force. We are the more anxious to do so, because a wholly erroneous impression has been communicated to English scholars with respect to scientific opinion in Germany as to the origin of life and the origin of species, from two causes: first, that Messrs. Darwin, Huxley, and others of their school have quoted German authorities who favour their views, without giving the slightest notion of the preponderant weight of scientific opinion that has pronounced against them; and second, that by the strange tendency of our times German materialistic works, like Büchner's Force and Matter, and other similar books written in advocacy of Darwin's theory, have been translated and widely circulated, whilst no echo of the most important writings written in another sense has been heard, in this country. It is due to Germany that this misrepresentation should be rectified. It is further important that in our discussion of the grave philosophical questions to which modern scientific researches lead, we should have the benefit of the comprehensive scope and the depth of insight which have hitherto characterised the study of them by the Germans. As we follow Ulrici's authoritative pages we shall be saved from such a one-sided and unfair representation of scientific opinion in Germany as has hitherto been given, for Ulrici gives willing audience to both parties, and judges after a full hearing of both sides. He thus commences his inquiry into the specific forces manifest in organised bodies.

All scientific inquirers are agreed that a profound cleft divides the realm of nature, separating its myriad objects into the two great classes of organic and inorganic bodies. But controversy arises as soon as we begin to define accurately the ground of this distinction, and the limits of these two classes. What is properly called organic, and what are the distinguishing marks of an organic body? These questions we now venture to answer. Organic chemistry limits its domain, and therefore the sphere of organic, as opposed to inorganic, nature, by the character of organic chemical compounds. All organic compounds contain carbon as a constituent. But carbon does not combine immediately with all the other elements; it first forms a compound with some

* We hope that this work, which we are glad to introduce to all German readers, may, together with its equally valuable successor, Gott und der Mensch, soon become known to the English public by means of good translations.

Domain of Organic Chemistry.

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simple substance, which then acts as an elementary body (i.e., a simple chemical body) in uniting with other elements, and which is consequently called a compound radical. A compound radical may be defined as a molecule chemically composed of several simple substances, which yet, despite its composition, acts as a simple substance or element, inasmuch as it combines chemically with other simple or compound substances, without losing its own composite structure. In inorganic bodies one element unites with another, and the compound may combine again with some other corresponding compound; but the compound radical existing in organic bodies can only unite with elementary substances, and not with other compounds. Organic chemistry, accordingly, is the chemistry of compound carbonic radicals. Nevertheless, the compound radicals which exist in inorganic bodies-c.g., Ammonium (N H.), which plays the same part as potassium, which is a simple radical-form a transition from organic to inorganic compounds, so that there is no breach in the rise from the simplest elementary substances to the most highly composite organic substances; and it is left to the discretion of the chemist where precisely to place the line between the organic and inorganic bodies.

As is well known, plants alone bear the power to form inorganic substances into organic compounds, or, as Liebig says, "it is the peculiar vegetative function to transfer and induce the mineral substances into an organism endowed with life, and so make the mineral participate in the action of a vital force." No part of an organic body can contribute to the nourishment of a plant until, by a process of corruption and decay, it has again assumed the form of inorganic substance. On the contrary, the animal organism needs for its nourishment and growth substances that are already organised. Under all circumstances, the nutrition of all animals consists of organised matter. The plant separates the oxygen from other elements with which it is mixed, and gives off the oxygen whilst it returns the carbon. On the contrary, the animal inhales the oxygen of the atmosphere, and combines it with certain constituents of its body; and all its vital processes depend on this combination of oxygen, so that the nutrition of the animal has been described as a process of combustion. The oxygen given off by the plant, and the carbonic compounds which it imbeds in its tissues, are thus precisely correlated to the wants of the animal, whose food is composed of these carbonic compounds, whilst these again combine with the oxygen that it breathes in precisely the same

manner as ignited fuel combines with the oxygen of the atmosphere. Oxygen is the necessary condition of life, and of the existence of all organised beings; but further, the existence of plants is the necessary condition of the existence of all animals. Organic chemistry has at last succeeded in partially solving another important task. It had been formerly assumed that no specifically organic substances could be produced out of inorganic substances in an artificial way. They were thought to require for their production a living organism, and to be thus absolutely distinguished from inorganic substances. But this distinction can now be only partially maintained, for chemists have succeeded in many instances in producing organic from inorganic substances.

Yet, so far as we know at present, only the very simplest organic substances, which contain two equivalents of carbon, can be produced from inorganic substances; and further, as Lotze Allgemeine Physiologie des körperlichen Lebens, p. 83), says: "The organic matters which chemists are able in their laboratory to exhibit, do not belong to the highest substances of the organism in which any living function is carried on. It is extremely improbable, considering the fruitless attempts of the past, that chemistry will ever exhibit' one substance that performs a living function in an organism." And Leibnitz declares that, as inorganic combinations, such as metals, are produced by the free action of the chemical affinities of their elements, but yet the method of their interaction, their deposition and arrangement, and consequently their form and their properties, are alike dependent on external causes co-operating with them, especially on the height of the temperature; so, in a precisely similar manner, light, warmth, and especially the vital force, become the external conditions which cause the specific form and properties of the combinations that are produced in the living organism. We are accordingly able to form an alum-crystal from its elements ―viz., sulphur, oxygen, potassium, and aluminium,—because, to a certain degree, we are able freely to direct their chemical affinities, and we can control the temperature so as to determine the order in which their molecules shall arrange themselves; but we cannot form a grain of starch from its elements, because vital force was the necessary condition. of their peculiar combination in the plant, and we cannot command it, as we can command the external agencies of light, heat, &c.

From what we have said, we learn that chemistry and physics yield us very scanty, indecisive, and disputable in