vi PREFACE. 



and incessant. I knew while I was doing this that I was tampering 

 with my own interests, but I thought I was doing a public good, and 

 I waived the consideration of private loss. Under these circum- 

 stances no one can charge me with mercenary motives, but whether 

 they do so or not I shall express my opinions in any way I think proper. 



I need not again repeat the expression of my admiration of Alder 

 and Hancock's ' Nudibranchiate Mollusca.' I will only say, that this 

 work in every respect maintains the reputation it has gained. But the 

 Society's great work of the present year is a translation of Oken's 

 1 Physio-philosophy,' a publication which, on its appearance, was 

 ridiculed throughout Germany as the climax of absurdity, and which 

 has never been tolerated by a single naturalist in that country from 

 that day to the present. It is a mere rhapsody, written forty years 

 ago, and, as the author expresses it, " in a kind of inspiration." 



As I have no idea whatever of Oken's views, I can give none to 

 others by an attempted abstract ; but in order to bring his matter be- 

 fore my readers, I will transcribe a few passages which appear some- 

 what detached, and which I think suffer nothing from isolation: 

 moreover, they approach more nearly to intelligibility than the greater 

 part of the volume, and are those which a learned member of the 

 Society has pointed out to me as favorable specimens. 



" SOMETHING. 



" 50. Still, however, there must be something which is posited and 

 negatived. The form must have a substance. 



" This something is the primary idea, or the very Eternal of mathe- 

 matics, the zero ; for + — is = 0. The -\ is naught else than 



zero affirmed; the — naught else than this + negatived = — 0. 

 Now since an affirmation once declared is = 1, so are unity and zero 

 identical. Zero differs only from finite unity in that it is not 

 affirmed. 



" 51. The — is not simply the want of affirmation, but its explicit 

 abstraction. The + presupposes the ; the — the + and ; the 

 however presupposes neither + nor —. Purely negative quantities 

 are, as is known, a nonentity, because they can only bear reference to 

 positive magnitudes. The — is, indeed, the retroversion of + into ; 



