If I here recall the hypotheses of the anthropology of all men who did not actually descend from Noah, I am far from saying that they were not descended from one couple. I have had, on the contrary, occasion to declare that, according to my views, science, in its present state, is powerless to resolve the question whether the human race is descended from one or from several sources. However, I am convinced that the differences which actually present themselves in the diverse human races have not manifested themselves since the deluge of Noah. I have said, long since, that paleontology has led me to admit that hereditary transformations are much more important than the differences which exist in the human race. At all times admitting that man has hardly suffered the transformations analogous to those described in the paleontological order, I am far from concluding that he descends from a beast. Existing observations do not disprove the distinct creation attributed by the Bible to man. The opinion of some authors, that all living beings derive their origin from a monad, is a gratuitous hypothesis, which cannot be sup ported by facts. Quite to the contrary, we learn, by paleontology, that all the great organic types existed in the silurian period; and, if the vertebral type had not yet been observed in the anterior deposits, this negative circumstance is considered of small importance. For it is only a short time since that the existence of organic remains in these deposits has been revealed; that these remains are very rare, and that even they differ but slightly from those of the silurian soil. Now, if the present state of observation leads us to admit that the Creator originally and distinctly formed the great types of organization, nothing authorizes us to deny that he created in a distinct manner the only being endowed with the faculty of knowing and adoring him.

On the other side, we do not see why the special origin of man is denied, even if he should have changed

his form with time, as I suppose other living creatures may have done. Genesis tells us truly that God created man in his own image; but we cannot understand this phrase to signify that he himself actuated a material form. God has taken the human form under certain circumstances to communicate with man, but no one maintains that this is the normal form of an essential

ly spiritual being. The Bible, in speaking of the image of the Deity, scarcely alludes to the material and decomposable part of man, but always to the spiritual part; which, to be the image of God, should be endowed with immortality. But this spiritual part, which we call the soul, may have been placed in a being who had a different form to that worn by man at the present time; one more appropriate to the sphere in which he lived. Because God now permits the existence of men, who, by their brutishness, assimilate to the beasts, we see no reason for supposing that the first men had forms unsuited to the development of the faculties which characterize the civilized world of to-day.

They have also denied particular immortality to human souls in assimilating them to vital force, but this is one of those hypotheses unfounded upon any observation.

I am convinced that the life, that is to say, the vital force, or the union of forces which gives to matter the attributes characteristic of organized bodies, can be assimilated, to a certain degree, to the forces which determine physical phenomena; because the condition of its effects are more restrained, and only develop by continuation with the body with which it was originally endowed, and is not a sufficient reason for concluding that it belongs to an entirely different order of things. We see, in effect, that the order of forces presents phenomena which becomes successively less general; it is thus that attraction constantly acts upon all bodies, while there exist circumstances where affinity acts upon certain bodies; and the manifestation of electricity is

On the other side, we cannot conceive the movement of the stars without the first cause of impulsion, any more than we can conceive the birth of a living being without the intervention of a preexisting cause; we cannot give to these connections any consequence contrary to the dogma of the immortality of the soul. Nor can science decide whether physical phenomena are owing to diverse forces, or to a single force that manifests itself in various ways; neither resolve the question whether life is composed of an individual force or the union of many. It is certain that vegetable life, a term which we consider applicable to all living things, is something different from animal life, a term applied to all sensible beings. It is contended no longer that man has attributes not possessed by beasts. Now we see nothing in physiology which opposes itself to these aptitudes being determined by a particular force named the soul, and that this force be endowed with immortality; that is to say, the power of preserving eternally its individuality after separation from the matter which it once animated.

Although I am unfamiliar with physiological studies, I will add that these considerations compel me to say that I have no right to apply the name of soul to that force which animates beasts; not that I wish to rob certain animals of the faculties which they enjoy, but whatever may be the intelligence or social capacity with which these animals are endowed, they cannot pretend to perform the role that man maintains upon earth. And nei ther physiology nor the sacred writings lead us to believe that the force which animates beasts should be endowed

Again, according to my views, a religious sense has hardly been given to the admission or the rejection of a human kingdom, a question frequently agitated in these modern times. In fact, the division of natural bodies into three kingdoms, with their inferior subdivisions, has only been made to facilitate the knowledge of these beings, and to designate by name the different groups of which we would speak. We cannot deny that by the mineral, the animal, and the vegetable kingdoms we understand three divisions, which include all bodies on the terrestrial globe; and that each one has common attributes which are not found in the two others; it follows that, when we admit a human kingdom, we have no term to designate the class of beings possessing the attributes which distinguish man and the beasts from the two other kingdoms. This consideration causes me to reject the human kingdom, without always classing man in the animal; the enlargement of the vertebræ and the mammiferous class appear to me to oppose themselves in another order of ideas; we must, therefore, believe that man is endowed with a soul enjoying attributes different from the force which animates beasts.

In conclusion, I do not hesitate to say that there exists in my mind no real opposition between our religious belief and the demonstrations afforded by the present state of the natural sciences.

Meteoric Stones.-M. Daubrée records his observations on a great shower of meteoric stones which fell on the 30th of May, in the territory of Saint Mesmin, in the Department of the Aube. Mr. Daubrée gives the following account of the phenomenon: The weather being fine and dry, and only a few clouds in the sky, at about 4,45 in the morning a luminous mass was seen to cross the sky with great rapidity, and shedding a great light between Mesgrigny and Payns. A few seconds after this appearance, three loud explosions, like the report of cannon, were heard at intervals of one or two seconds. Several minor explosions, like those of muskets, followed the first, and succeeded one another like the discharge of skirmishers. After the detonations a tongue of fire darted toward the earth, and at the same time a hissing noise was heard like that of a squib, but much louder. This again was followed by a dull, heavy sound, which a person compared to that of a shell striking the earth near him. After a long search he perceived, at the distance of about two hundred feet from the place where he was when he heard the noise, a spot where the earth had been newly disturbed; he examined the place, and saw a black stone at the bottom of a hole nine inches deep, which it seemed to have formed. This stone weighs nearly ten pounds. On the following day a gendarme named Framonnot picked up another meteoric stone of the same nature, weighing nearly seven pounds, at about two thousand feet distant from where it first fell. A third stone was found on the first of June by a man named Prosat, five to six thousand feet from the two spots above referred to. This last meteorite weighed nearly four pounds and a half.—Science Review.

Father Secchi.-A new spectroscope has been constructed by Father Secchi, S.J., and seems to be a very excellent instrument. It absorbs a very small quantity of light, and is therefore admirably adapted for stellar observations. The inventor has analyzed with it the spectrum of the light emitted by the star Antarés. It is of a red color; the lumi

nous bands have been resolved into bright lines, and the dark ones are checkered with light and dark lines, so there is no black foundation.-The Read

er.

The Heat-conductibility of Mercury.M. Gripon, who has been making experiments after Peclet's method, thinks he has demonstrated that if the conducting power of silver be regarded as 100, that of mercury is equal to 3:54. He places mercury, therefore, the lowest in the scale of metals, as far as the conductibility of heat is concerned. It is strange that electric conductivity is quite different, being represented by the figures 1.80.—Science Review.

Penetration of Platinum and Iron by Hydrogen.-From time to time we have reported the discoveries of Troost and Deville in this field of research. These conclusions have recently been collected by the master of the mint, Mr. Thomas Graham, in an admirable paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society. He thinks that this wonderful penetration is connected with a power resident in the above-mentioned and certain other metals to liquefy and absorb hydrogen, which latter is possibly in the condition of a metallic vapor. Platinum in the form of wire or plate at a low, red heat may take up and hold 3-8 volumes of hydrogen, measured cold; but it is by palladium that the property in question appears to be possessed in the highest degree. Palladium foil from the hammered metal, condensed so much as 643 times its volume of hydrogen, at a temperature under 100° C. The same metal had not the slightest absorbent power for either oxygen or nitrogen. The capacity of fused palladium (as also of fused platinum) is considerably reduced, but foil or fused palladium, a specimen of which Mr. Graham obtained from Mr. G. Matthey, absorbed 68 volumes of the gas. Mr. Graham thinks that a certain degree of porosity may be admitted to exist in all these metals.Science Review.

Improvements in the Barometer.-Some

important improvements have recently been effected in the Aneroid barometer by Messrs. Cook & Sons, the opticians. Although the Aneroid, under ordinary circumstances, has been shown by Mr. Glaisher and others to be very much more effective and satisfactory in its results than could have been hoped, still, under conditions which bring rapid changes of pressure into play, the instrument when it returns to the nominal pressure does not always indicate correctly. This results from the motion being communicated to the index axle by a chain, and this chain, from other con

siderations, is the weakest part of the instrument, and is the first acted upon by climatic influences, rust, etc. Mr. Cook has abolished this chain altogether, substituting for it an almost invisible driving-band of gold or platinum, and the result of this great improvement is that the Aneroid may now be looked upon as an almost perfect instrument for scientific research. Several such Aneroids, placed under the receiver of an air-pump, not only march absolutely together, but all return unfailingly to one and the same indication.-The Reader.

1. FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS COURT, An Historical Romance. By L. Mühlbach. Translated from the German by Mrs. Chapman Coleman and her daughters. New York: Appleton & Co. 1867. 12mo, pp. 434.

2. BERLIN AND SANS-SOUCI; OR, FREDERICK THE GREAT AND HIS FRIENDS. An Historical Romance. Author, translators, and publishers the same. New York. 1867. 12mo, pp. 391. 3. JOSEPH II. AND HIS COURT. An Historical Romance. By the same. Translated from the German by Adelaide de V. Chaudbron; complete in one volume. New York: Appleton & Co. 8vo, double columns, pp. 343.

1867.

We know nothing of the writer of these works, save the works themselves, and even them we know only in the translations before us. The last-named volume reads more like an original work in English than the others. Mrs. Chapman Coleman and her daughters appear not to have learned the proper use of shall and will, and make now and then the same sort of blunder the Frenchman did when he fell into the river and exclaimed: "I will be drowned, and nobody shall help me out." The use of shall and will is a little arbitrary in English. Shall in the first person simply foretells, in the second and third persons it commands; will in the first person promises

or expresses a determination or resolution, in the second and third persons it simply foretells. The same rule applies to should and would. The Scotch, Irish, and most foreigners are very apt to reverse the rule, as do some New-Yorkers and most western writers and speakers.

These works themselves are too historical for romances, and too romantic for histories. Unless one is exceedingly familiar with the real history of the times, one never knows whether he is reading history or only romance. The historical predominates in them, and most people will read them as histories rather than romances, and thus imbibe many erroneous views of real persons and events. The Empress Maria Theresa is praised enough and more than enough, so far as words go, both as a woman and as a sovereign, but she is, after all, represented very untruthfully as weak, sentimental, permitting her ministers to persuade her to adopt measures to which she is conscientiously opposed, and really ruinous to the empire. She is arbitrary, despotic, and the slave of her confessor. The author even repeats the silly story that Kaunitz persuaded her, in order to further his policy, to write an autograph letter to Madame Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV., and to praise her for her virtue and modesty, a story invented, it is said, by Frederick the Great. The bete noir of the writer is the clergy, and alike whether Catholic or Protestant. The

author sympathizes from first to last with Joseph II.; thinks the Josephine reforms or pretended reforms very just, very wise in themselves, but that the people were too ignorant and superstitious to appreciate them. From first to last humanity takes precedence of God and the state of the church. The great divinity the author worships is the mutual love of man and woman, and the greatest evil that afflicts humanity, or at least princes and princesses, is that they cannot follow the inclinations of their own heart, but must sacrifice their affections to the demands of state policy.

Joseph II. is a great favorite with the author, but Frederick the Great is her hero. He is always great, noble, wise, just, with a most loving heart, which he sacrifices to the necessities of state. No censure is breathed against his infamous conduct in invading and taking possession of Silesia, without even a color of right, and without even the formality of declaring war against Austria, and while Austria, unsuspicious of any invasion, is wholly unprepared to resist it, and embarrassed by a disputed succession. He was successful, and in our times success is proof of right. Frederick was utterly without principle, without faith of any sort, a philosophe, corresponded with Voltaire, invited him to his court, and even paid him a salary, and detested the clergy, and therefore was a fitting idol of our modern liberals and humanitarians, and worshippers of FORCE like Carlyle.

Joseph the Second, we are inclined to believe, was sincere, and really wished to benefit the nation committed to his charge, and he gave proof of it in revoking most of the changes he attempted, and dying as a Christian. He was vain and ambitious, and was led astray by the philosophy of his times, and his unprincipled minister, Prince Kaunitz, a legacy from his mother. He, like all the philosophers of the eighteenth century, understood nothing of the laws of continuity, and supposed anything he decided to be for the good of his people, however contrary to all their most deeply cherished convictions and their most inveterate habits, could be forced upon them by power, and should be received with grateful hearts. Two things he appears to never have known, that despotism cannot found liberty, and that power must, if it would make people happy, suffer them to be happy in their own. There was, in the eighteenth century, with the European

rulers and the upper classes much sincere and active benevolence-a real and carnest desire to lighten the burdens of government and ameliorate the condition of the people; and no one can read these volumes, with sufficient knowledge to distinguish what in them is history from what is mere romance, without being persuaded that real reforms would have gone much further, and European society would have been far in advance of what it now is, if the revolution of 1789 had never been attempted. All that was true in the so-called principles of 1789 was favorably accepted by nearly all European statesmen and sovereigns who were laboring peaceably and earnestly to develop and apply it. The statesmen and sovereigns, unhappily, had utterly false and mischievous views of the relation of the church to the state, and imagined that the only way to reform society was to begin by subjecting the spiritual to the temporal; but they went in this direction not so far as went the old French revolution. Indeed, the great lesson of history is that the attempt to effect real social reforms by raising the people against legitimate authority, whether civil or ecclesiastical, always turns out a failure. Some good may be gained on one side, but is sure to be more than overbalanced by the evils effected on another side.

As purely literary works, these historical romances possess a high degree of merit, and prove that the writer has rare powers of description and analysis. They read like the genuine histories, and from them alone it is impossible to say where the real history ends and the romance begins, so completely is the verisimilitude maintained throughout. If, as we are told, they are the productions of a female pen, as they bear indubitable evidence of being, they are truly remarkable productions. The characters introduced are all, or nearly all, historical, and if not all or always faithfully reproduced, they are presented without any violence to the generally received history of the two courts described. There is a little too much German sentimentality in them, if faithfully translated, to suit our taste, and more than we believe is usually to be found in imperial or royal courts; and the liaisons of princes are treated with too much lenity, if not downright approbation, to have a good moral effect; but they indicate a rare mastery of the subjects they treat, and intellectual powers of a very high order. They are by no