LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OF NATUKE AND LIFE. 



matter, and thus related to the forces on which these 

 motions depend. The word Chemistry, feeble and 

 partial as originally applied, now appropriates to itself 

 a vast space in the domain of human knowledge. 



We have stated our design of briefly illustrating in 

 this article some of the more marked characteristics 

 and attainments of recent science. Before dilating on 

 that branch of it which thus deals with matter through 

 its infinitesimal parts, we might invite the notice of 

 our readers to that loftier study which has for its pro- 

 vince the heavens and their numberless worlds. The 

 progress of astronomy during the last few years has 

 not been less rapid than that of the other sciences, 

 with some of which it has become united by new and 

 unexpected relations. To the most remarkable of 

 these we shall have occasion immediately to refer, 

 though with another object. But the discoveries due 

 to spectrum analysis, the greatest astronomical achieve- 

 ments of our time, have been so fully described in a late 

 number of this Eeview, that we may best avoid repe- 

 tition by hastening to another subject, though loth to 

 quit one replete with grandeur in itself, and exemplify- 

 ing so wonderfully the genius and intellectual prowess 

 of man in his higher grades of cultivation. 



We revert, then, to Chemistry, the objects of which 

 as a science and its rapid and various progress we have 

 just denoted. Our further notice, however, must be 

 limited to a few only of the attainments of recent years. 

 A large proportion of these may be said to belong to, 

 or to come in illustration of, the atomic theory, of 

 which the two great processes of analysis and synthesis, 



