I SS 5 -] Analyses of Boohs. 357 
found their way into the hands of the Parisian pastry-cooks, 
that when introduced into the digestive organs they should not 
be assimilated might have been expedted. But Dr. Randolph 
has demonstrated experimentally that this mineral fat is entirely 
lejedted and is found unchanged in the fases. Hence the con- 
clusion is simply that these hydrocarbons are, as articles of food, 
quite useless. The author’s experiments further go to prove 
that oily matters are absorbed, not by mechanical, but by physio- 
logical adtion. 
The interest of the remaining sedtions of this book is purely 
professional. 
Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington. Vol. VII. 
Containing the Minutes of the Society and of the Mathe- 
matical Sedtion for the year 1884. Published by the Co- 
operation of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington. 
A great part of this volume is taken up with the annual address 
of the President, Mr. James C. Welling, on “The Atomic 
Philosophy, Physical and Metaphysical.” This very interesting 
and important discourse opens with a historical survey of the 
lise and progress of atomism. The speaker recognises the 
Atomic Philosophy of the Greeks as the most elaborate and 
ingenious which has come down to us from all antiquity. He 
admits that the Epicurean physics are “ as much superior to the 
Aristotelian and the Stoical physics as the ethics of the Lyceum 
and the Porch are superior to the ethics of the Sty.” Yet he at 
the same time contends, and with fullest justice, that in the 
whole system there is not an atom of scientific truth. “ The 
whole speculation is a mirage caused by unequal refradtions in 
tne Greek intelledt.” If atoms exist they must needs be chemical 
conceptions, and the rationale of chemistry had not yet dawned 
on the horizon of the Greek intelledt. 
This naturally brings us to the much discussed subjedt of the 
incapacity of the Greek mind for Science. Mr. WYlling criticises 
the explanation of the fadt given by Dr. W. Whewell, who, as 
our readers will remember, argues that though the Greeks had 
in their possession an abundance of fadts and were acute 
observers and critics, their ideas “were not distindt and appro- 
priate to the fadts.” On this he remarks that it would hardly be 
possible to frame an explanation more pointless. The Greeks 
had very distindt ideas and their hypotheses were illusory, pre- 
cisely because they were so “ appropriate ” to the surface fadts 
of Greek observation. Quoting Professor Jewett, he tells us 
that “ancient logic was always mistaking the truth of the form 
for the truth of the matter.” He asserts that : « The conscious 
incapacity of the Greeks for physical science was so great that 
