388 Literary Notices. 



three first being called " impartative " and the last "investigative " 

 We may not he able to apprehend the ideas which are intended to 

 be conveyed by these arrangements, but they do not seem founded 

 on positive knowledge or fact, but rather to represent an arbitrary 

 scheme in the author's mind. Perhaps our readers will derive some 

 information from the following illustration of "transcendental phi- 

 losophy." "An individual being is a miniature human world within 

 a family, the family is a tiny world within a city, the city is a com- 

 plex world within a nation, and a nation is a larger world within 

 the limits of terrestrial humanity. Beyond the natural world of 

 humanity we have the lymbic, beyond the lymbic the supernatural, 

 and beyond all human worlds the superhuman." 



GrERMINAL MATTEE AND THE CONTACT ThEOEY. An Essay On the 



Morbid Poisons, their Nature, Sources, Effects, Migrations, and 

 the means of Limiting their ISToxious Agency. By James Morris, 

 M.D., Lond. Second Edition. (Churchill.)— A well-written and 

 interesting little book, applying Lionel Beale's theory of germinal 

 matter to the explanation of contagious disease. It is certainly 

 exceedingly probable that such matter, in a minute state of division, 

 brought into contact with appropriate materials in living bodies, is 

 a common cause of disease ; but the author throws little light on 

 the question, as to the extent and circumstances under which 

 physical or other conditions may occasion disease, without the 

 actual importation into the system of an extraneous and living 

 morbid particle. Nor does he afford fresh information as to the 

 circumstances which enable some persons to resist contagious or 

 infectious influences while others succumb to them. In spite of the 

 best sanitary arrangements, particles of germinal matter, capable of 

 inducing disease, are probably so widely diffused in large towns 

 and their vicinity, that no one could expect to escape, unless the 

 conditions under which they can operate mischievously were hap- 

 pily comparatively rare. The cattle plague doctors and the Privy 

 Council recommended killing and burying every patient afflicted with 

 the disease. Dr. Morris does not advise such treatment of bipeds, 

 and does not enter into the question of its propriety with respect to 

 quadrupeds. We cannot do wrong in following his advice to 

 destroy germs of disease as far as possible ; and the promulgation 

 of the theory he espouses will be beneficial in suggesting useful 

 action, and also in stimulating farther research. VV r ith regard to 

 the philosophy of the book, we may remark that a portion of 

 "germinal matter " capable of independent existence, does not seem 

 distinguishable from a " germ," and the diffusion of germs has 

 long been recognized as a cause of disease. 



The Microscope, its History, Construction, and Application ; 

 being a familiar introduction to the iise of the Instrument and the 

 study of Microscopic Science. By Jabez Hogg, F.L.S., F.R.M.S., 

 Secretary Royal Microscopical Society, Member of the Royal Col- 

 lege of Surgeons of England, author of " Elements of Natural 

 Philosophy,"a "Manual of Ophthalmic Surgery," etc. With upwards 

 of five hundred engravings and coloured illustrations, by Tuffcn 

 West. Sixth Edition. (Routledge). — Without disparaging the 



