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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Europe, and now the Vatican Council has personally and solemnly anathe- 
matised them.” Meanwhile Galileo led the way to another overthrow of 
the church by bringing- it to confess that his ideas and not its were correct. 
Then came the mighty power of Luther and the Reformation which has 
left at least one-third of Europe, and that the conquering third, exclusively 
Protestant. Professor Draper thinks that we are now in the same position 
that Arabia had readied in the tenth and eleventh centuries, and that the 
questions which now are for discussion are Evolution , Creation , and Develop- 
ment. However, we don’t quite agree with him in this opinion. Undoubtedly 
the question at present that engages attention is evolution, but we cannot 
conceive that the Arabs of the eleventh century had reached that doctrine. 
Besides his account of those several periods of the world’s history, which 
is given in glowing and eloquent language, the author adds three chapters 
on the following questions which, are of extreme interest. These are : 
(1) An examination of what Latin Christianity has done for modern civili- 
zation •, (2) a corresponding examination of what science has done ; and 
(3) the attitude of Roman Christianity in the impending conflict, as de- 
fined by the Vatican Council. On all these points those who are sufficiently 
impartial to give ear to an unbiassed but clever observer will read what 
Professor Draper has to say. Those who are undevoid of prejudice will, of 
course, not receive anything that is opposed to their pre-existing views. 
think it is to be regretted that Dr. Drysdale should have attempted 
such a book as this, for it certainly leaves the matter he has taken up 
exactly where he found it. Still it is an unquestionably clever work, which 
discusses the various views that are held on the subject of life, by opposing 
schools of thought, with a great deal of impartiality. But the author might 
have said at the first that he believed in a God, without any argument either 
in his favour or in opposition from scientific matters. Then the reader would 
not have exclaimed, Why is so much science brought to bear on the matter ? 
Dr. Drysdale discusses nothing that has not been over and over again treated 
of, and he is just as enlightened on the question of protoplasm as any of us. 
We think it is a pity that he should have given up so much time to the 
composition of this book, when he might have expended the time, as lie has 
done before, in valuable microscopical researches. 
* “The Protoplasmic Theory of Life.” By John Drysdale, M.D., 
F.R.M.S., Author of the “ Physiological Action of Kali Bichromicum.” 
London : Balliere, 1874. 
THE PROTOPLASMIC THEORY OF LIFE.* 
