i88o.j Analyse* of Books* 335 
conceptions of His mode of creation. He might have found 
that “ Monsieur Comte,” whom he curiously mixes up with the 
Evolutionists, was — like many other men who are neither 
Christians nor even Theists — a firm upholder of the permanence 
of species. He might perchance have learnt that the co-disco- 
verer of the principle of “ Natural Selection ” is the author of 
the ablest refutation of Hume’s argument against miracles, and 
that though certain believers in Evolution are, in common phrase- 
ology, “ Infidels,” yet their Infidelity and their Evolutionism 
stand in no causal connection. 
To the biologist the work before us is simply something 
dead. It brings forward no facts either novel or which have 
escaped notice : it propounds no questions which may be solved 
by observation and experiment ; it throws out no suggestions 
capable of being followed up. The author’s law of “ Evolution 
and Involution is stated in the following terms “ All beings 
in proportion as they assume personality and evolve out of the 
universe, in that proportion do they involve it within themselves 
and incorporate it, approaching at the same time absolutism in 
all its attributes.” Concerning this collection of words the 
author modestly declares that, “ like everything that is great, it 
is so simple and obvious that a child can comprehend it, yet upon 
this simple law hangs the revelation of existence and being to 
man.” This seems to us one of the many laws which we have 
heard enunciated which, however simply, lead to nothing. 
The Spectroscope in Medicine. By C. A. MacMunn, M.D. 
With three Chromo-lithographic Plates of Physiological and 
Pathological Speftra, and thirteen Woodcuts. London : 
J. and A. Churchill. 
That the spectroscope, judiciously applied, is likely to become 
a valuable guide in Medicine scarcely requires demonstration. 
It has been already applied with success for ascertaining the 
presence of abnormal elements, such as the poisonous metals, 
in the body or its secretions, — a circumstance the more valuable 
as the quantity of material to be operated upon by the toxicologist 
may sometimes be too small for the ordinary processes of che- 
mical analysis. According to Dr. Thudichum, morbid gases 
occurring in the animal economy may be recognised by its use. 
Dr. Bence Jones has employed the spectroscope for determining 
the time that certain salts take to reach any part of the body ; 
for finding where diffusing substances go to, how long they are 
in passing from the stomach into the textures, how long they 
stay there, and how quickly they cease to appear in the ex- 
cretions. 
Still more instructive is the study of the absorption spectra of 
VOL. II. (THIRD SERIES). 2 B 
