76 
NATURE 
[May 25, 1871 

and changes which are unceasing ; it always contains certain 
substances in what is called ‘‘unstable equilibrium,” which 
become decomposed and reduced to more stable compounds the 
moment the peculiar vital property is lost. An organised being 
is not produced by the direct union of definite proportions of 
two or more simple substances; it arises by the growth of a 
germ, aportion separated from the body of a pre-existing organised 
being of the same kind. Finally, organised beings never assume 
accurate geometrical forms, but under the influence of life each 
kind of organised being assumes a characteristic, though not 
absolutely definite shape, which is the resultant of the sum 
of the shapes of all its structural elements, which has a 
very close relation to the shape of the organised being 
from which it was derived as a germ, though it is 
not identical with it, and which is called its individual form. 
T have thus far contrasted inert matter with organised beings 
possessing life. That the term life indicates a very special pro- 
perty there can be no doubt, but, as yet, an impenetrable veil 
seems to shroud its ultimate processes. I believe, however, that 
the veil is at the far end of the labyrinth in which we are now 
wandering, and that patient observation and guarded generali- 
sation may yet enable us greatly to narrow the limits of the un- 
known—to approach some steps nearer to the veil. I must 
premise that, as I am now looking at the subject from a purely 
physiological point of view, I regard life simply as a condi- 
tion capable of producing certain perceptible phenomena, and 
can take no cognizance whatever of that mysterious union be- 
tween spirit and matter which is broken in passing through ‘‘ the 
valley of the shadow of death.” Material processes and material 
changes only are subject to the material instruments of biological 
research. ‘Those inner mysteriesare now and must probably ever 
remain—in our present condition of existence—beyond the veil. 
It becomes daily more manifest with the advance of knowledge 
that the action of known physical laws—such as chemical affinity 
and capillarity as manifested by porous media and by colloids— 
are most intimately interwoven with all organic processes, and it 
is, as yet, impossible to say how far life may influence, in the 
sense of modifying or directing, the action of these laws. 
has been called the vital force, and it has been suggested that it 
may be found to belong to the same category as the convertible 
forces heat and light. Life seems, however, to be more a pro- 
perty of matter in a certain state of combination than a force. 
It does no work in the ordinary sense. If a man lift a weight 
a couple of feet off the ground, many of the so-called vital 
actions are called into play, but yet every part of the work done 
can be accounted for by the action of the ordinary physical 
forces. The actof the will, in regal phrase the ‘‘mere motion,” 
which induced the lifting of the weight, can be referred, we can 
scarcely doubt, to the mechanical action of some part of a large 
and complicated apparatus, the cerebral hemispheres, and was 
accompanied by a waste of its substance. 
The telegraphic communication to the muscles involved which 
harmonised their several acts and signalled the contraction of 
their fibres, was conveyed through a cord whose molecules were 
set in vibration by a force very probably convertible with the 
physical forces, generated by chemical change and the waste of | 
tissue ; and in the muscle, the organ by which the weight was 
actually raised, an amount of waste took place—that is to say, 
an amount of carbon was combined with oxygen precisely equi- | 
valent theoretically to the quantity of coal which must have been 
burned in a perfectly constructed engine to do the same work. 
Chemical forces act in living beings under very special circum- 
stances. Fora series of years a mass of substances are held 
undergoing constant change and throughout in the most unstable 
state of chemical combination. The instant the condition of life 
is removed, decomposition commences, and the complex con- 
stituents of the body are resolved into more simple and stable 
combinations. But yet it may be fairly questioned whether the 
Life | 

chemical relations of the component elements of an organised | 
bedy are in any way directly affected or controlled by life. It 
has become quite conceivable, especially through the researches 
of the late Master of the Mint, that a constant adjustment and 
re-adjustment of membranous and colloid diaphragms in the pre- 
sence of powerful catalytic agents may possibly explain the | 
maintenance of almost any chemical conditions however com- 
plicated. 
The one function of living beings whose explanation it seems 
at present impossible to imagiue except by regarding it as 
the manifestation of a special property, is what has been called 
the ‘‘ moulding of specific form ;” the building up of a hetero- 

geneous and complicated organism, which shall repeat, not 
rigidly but with a certain flexibility, the characters which have 
been transmitted to it through a germ froma parent, every 
molecule of every part having thus a direct relation in form, in 
position, and in composition, to every other molecule of the 
body. At present, regarding it from a purely material point of 
view, we are scarcely justified in regarding life as more than that — 
condition of an organised being in which the products of chemi- 
cal and physical changes taking place within it are stamped with 
a specific organic form. 
(Zo be continued.) 


SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
Fournal of the Ethnological Society of London (January 1871). 
A paper by Mr. E. B. Tylor on ‘‘ The Philosophy of Religion 
among the lower Races of Mankind” gives in a condensed form 
his views on the development of ‘‘ Animism,” 7.2. the doctrine 
of the soul, and of spirit and deity in general, a subject which 
is treated at length in his recently published work on ‘‘ Primitive 
Culture.” —Prof. Huxley’s address on the ‘* Geographical Dis- 
tribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind” is accompanied 
by an ethnological map, which curators and lecturers will do well 
to adopt as a wall-map. The principal races of mankind are de- 
fined as the Australioid, Negroid, Mongoloid, andthe Xantho- 
chroicand Melanochroic (fair and dark whites.) Among the special 
features in Prof. Huxley’s scheme of the races of mankind, the 
following are prominent. The indigenous non-Aryan tribes of 
Central and Southern India, and less closely the ancient 
Egyptians and their descendants, the modern Fellahs, are referred 
to the Australioid type. The Negroid type of Africa is divided 
between the Negroes proper and the Bushmen of the extreme 
south, the Hottentots being considered a cross-breed between 
these two races. The Mongoloid type is made to include not 
only the brachycephalic Tatar races, but classification by skulls 
is set aside, and the group is arranged to include the Chinese and 
Japanese. The ‘‘absurd denomination” of ‘‘ Caucasian” is 
abandoned, and the nations thus described by ethnologists come 
under the titles of Xanthochroi, fair whites, who are classed as 
of special type, and Melanochroi, dark whites, which latter 
Prof. Huxley is disposed to consider as sprung from intermixture 
of Xanthochroi and Australioids. In this classification of human 
types or races, Prof. Huxley rests on physical characteristics, 
treating language as subordinate. In his remarks on ‘‘ The 
Ethnology of Britain” he again states his views as to 
the great division of European men _ between the fair 
whites of the centre and west, and the dark whites of 
the south, Both types occur in the early population of 
our islands, the use of Celtic language not corresponding with a 
racial distinction.—Dr. Nicholas’s paper on the ‘‘ Influence of 
the Norman Conquest on the Ethnology of Britain” is in strong 
antagonism to the view that Englishmen are ethnologically ‘* Low 
Dutch.” In his view, the old British race, in great measure, 
kept its early type, the Saxon, Danish, and Norman invasions 
affecting language, government, &c., rather than replacing the 
population itself.—Among the papers on Prehistoric Archzeology 
| are Sir John Lubbock’s description of the Park Cwm Tumulus, 
and an account of remains of ‘‘ Platyenemic Men in Denbigh- 
shire,” by Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins and Prof. Busk.—Canon Green- 
well’s paper on ‘‘ The Opening of Grime’s Graves in Norfolk,” 
gives full particulars as to the site of a Stone Age manufactory 
of implements from the excellent flint of the district. The chalk 
was systematically mined for the flint, and the so-called “ Grime’s 
Graves” are ancient pit-workings of this class. Colonel Lane 
Fox is disposed to explain in the same way the ‘‘ Danes’ Holes’? 
in Kent, long a puzzle to antiquaries.— Looking at the number 
of the journal of the Ethnological Society, it is to be hoped that 
the journal of the new Anthropological Institute will maintain 
its very high standard of succinctness, solidity, and general 
interest. 
THE Geological Magazine for the present month (No. 83) con- 
tains only four original articles, of which the first is an account 
by the editor, Mr. H. Woodward, of the objects which more 
particularly attracted his attention during a recent visit to the 
Brussels Museum. He notices especially the fossils of the 
Antwerp crag, and a fine example of the mammoth found at 
Lierre, in the province of Antwerp, in a sufficiently perfect 
state to be mounted as a skeleton, Two figures of this in- 
teresting specimen are given. Mr. Woodward also refers to 
