of the human race, a series of actions displayed by the various tribes of the animal kingdom may be so placed as to render it impossible to say of any one step in the series, "Here intelligence begins." (Spencer, p. 349.) Bodily and mental life are thus divisions of life in general, being related to each other as species of which life is the genus. (P. 351.) On this supposition, it is clear that there is no such thing as mind, in the ordinary acceptation of the term; and pyschology merges into a mere department of physiology. But we proceed to follow our author in his pursuit of the exact definition of Life. It might, indeed, be objected to every attempt to define the nature of Life, that it must be, in the strict sense of the word, incapable of definition; the idea itself being essentially more simple and comprehensive than those which the process must necessarily involve. But we will not raise a difficulty here, which may be considered, after all, but one of logical verbalism. Life is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive. This definition he attempts to "supplement," in the following chapters, by the addition of further particulars, without which it will “fail to call up any definite conception." "It fails from omitting the most distinctive peculiarity, the peculiarity of which we have the most familiar experience, and with which our notion of life is more than with any other associated." Thus far we have got no further idea of vitality than that of an automaton, an electrical or calculating machine, or a chemical compound in operation. On considering after what manner we habitually dis tinguish between a live object and a dead one, we shall find that we do so by observing whether a change which we make in the surrounding conditions, or one which Nature makes in them, is, or is not, followed by some perceptible change in the object. By discovering that certain things shrink when touched, or fly away when approached, or start when a noise is made, the child first roughly discriminates between the living and the not living; and the man, when in doubt whether an animal he is looking at is dead or not, stirs it with his stick; or, if it be at a distance, shouts, or throws a stone at it. Vegetable and animal life are alike primarily recognised by this process. Not only, however, do we habitually look for some response when an external stimulus is applied to a living organism, but we recognise a certain fitness in the response. Dead as well as living things display changes under certain changes of condition; as a lump of carbonate of soda that effervesces when dropped into sulphuric acid; as a cord that contracts when wetted; as a piece of wood that turns brown when held to the fire. We generally observe (in truly vital changes) a harmony between living changes and changes in surrounding circumstances. Coleridge, in his remarkable posthumous essay," Hints towards the Formation of a more comprehensive Theory of Life," (but which is, in truth, borrowed, even to its terminology, from the "Erster Entwurf" of Schelling-one of those shameless plagiarisms which must for ever sully the moral repute of that great writer,) defines life as "the principle of individuation," or that power which developes itself from within, combining many general properties into one individual centre. But, not to speak of the obscurity of the formula itself, and its consequent need of technical interpretation, who does not see that it in no way assists the mind to the conception of the principle of life, referring, as it does, not so much to the source of vitality, as to the formation of those peculiar aggregations of matter which manifest life; ganism, and the conditions in which it is placed, — while, as our author further objects, it includes in it such purely physical processes as e.g., Crystallization? (P. 354.) He then rejects the definition of Richerand, -that "Life is a collection of phenomena which succeed each other during a limited time in an organized body," as, in truth, equally applicable to the phenomena of decay which go on after death in organized bodies; as well as that of De Blainville,-that "Life is the twofold internal movement of composition and decomposition, at once general and continuous," on the twofold ground that it applies less closely to the phenomena of animal than of vegetative life, and may be taken to include the active processes going on in a galvanic battery. He then reproduces a formula of his own, from an article in the Westminster Review," for April, 1852, on "A Theory of Population," which defines it as "the co-ordination of actions;" for which, however, he now substitutes one more matured and comprehensive : Yet, further, there remains to notice the hackneyed truth, that there is invariably, and necessarily, a certain conformity between the vital functions of any or between the processes going on inside of it, and the processes going on outside of it. We know that a fish cannot live in air, nor a man in water. Grouping together these two classes of cases,—the cases in which a particular change in the circumstances of an organism is followed by a particular change in it; and the case last-named, in which the actions going on inside of an organism are dependent upon some constant actions going on outside of it,we see, that in both, the changes, or processes, displayed by a living body are especially related to the changes or processes in its environment. And in this truth we find the needful supplement to our definition. By the addition of this all-important characteristic, life is defined as-The definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and success ive, in correspondence with external co-existences and sequences. (Pp. 366-368.) Or, to reduce it to its simplest terms: In all cases, we may consider the external phenomena as simply in relation, and the internal, also, as simply in relation: the broadest and most complete definition of Life will be the continuous adjustment of in ternal relations to external relations. But if life is this, and no more than this, what, then, is death? Here our author's theory gives no satisfactory reply; because the body and its environment not ceasing, but altering, their relations, death is nothing but life under new conditions; in other words, there is no such thing as death. He might plead, in reply, that the new changes observable in the dead body no longer exhibit an harmony with the proper habitual functions of the body; or, in his own words, that "the changes have no apparent relation to future external events which are likely to take place." But this is to assume either that a want of harmony is admissible in natural operations, (a notion which his whole system abhors,) or, that we are able to assign to any organism a certain function, which it was fitted to fill, but will not fill; involving, clearly, that very "teleological implication " from which he labours to keep his formula free. We rise from these speculations, ingenious, and, in many respects, instructive as they are, with the confirmed conviction that to define the principle of life, at least on empirical, experimental grounds, must be ever a hopeless and fallacious undertaking. Like every other ultimate step in a chain of reasoning or research, it eludes our powers of analysis. We observe and connect its phenomena; but these are not life itself. We must rest in such facts as embody and manifest it. That life, the mind, the soul, exist, internal consciousness and external experience make us aware; but the anatomist will no more make palpable the soul by dissection of the bodily tissues, than the physiologist will detect the fountain of life and thought among the complex functions of vital and conscious organization. If we have dwelt at undue length upon this portion of our subject, it is because we are alive to the danger which besets the study of mental science, if the reader enters upon it with his conceptions narrowed by arbitrary theories, and restricted to a basis of investigation which is intrinsically inadequate. Could we take up our author at the point where the fact of consciousness enters into his system, we should follow him willingly through the later steps by which he developes his theory of life, pursuing the idea above laid down of external and internal correspondences, through the relations of time and space, marking the growing degree of appreciation of their phenomena in the ascending stages of animal life. This leads him to the nature and laws of Intelligence, its expansion from instinct to reason, its connexion with memory, logical combination, inferential processes, &c. In his analysis of these psychical states we recognise, gladly, a vast amount of acute penetration, deep reflection, and strict reasoning, joined with singular powers of language and illus tration, such as would invest his work with the highest value in our eyes, could we view them apart from those faulty premises on which he has chosen to base his philosophical fabric. In this our willing meed of praise we wish to comprise, without reserve, the entire first section of his book, in which he treats of the logical basis of all reasoning, or canon of all true beliefs, under the well-chosen and expressive title of the Universal Postulate. There is not in our language a more masterly analysis of the subjective phenomena of consciousness. Some outline, brief as it must necessarily be, will not be unacceptable to our readers. The ultimate ground of all our cognitions must consist in states of consciousness. But are these, therefore, all equally valid, equally credible? Obviously not: and hence the need of some test or criterion of credulity, by which the results of self-analysis may be verified, and the immediate beliefs distinguished from the mediate; the true from the false. Some canon of normal thinking must be found, by their congruity or incongruity with which all conclusions respecting the phenomena of consciousness may be judged. If Psychology is ever to become anything more than a mere aggregation of opinions, it can only be by the establishment of some datum universally agreed to. (P. 4.) The existence of such widely opposite theories as idealism and scepticism-both utterly at variance with universal belief-is sufficient to indicate the lurking want of some such logical datum or intellectual guarantee. Now The logical impossibility of these theories which conflict with universal belief becomes manifest. For we cannot carry on such an inquiry without taking How, then, can we legitimately end in proving somefor granted the trustworthiness of our intelligence. thing at variance with our primary beliefs, and so proving our intelligence fundamentally untrustworthy? Intelligence cannot prove its new invalidity, because it must postulate its own validity in doing this. The arguments with which Hume endeavoured to meet the difficulties of scepticism, as well as the positions which Sir W. Hamilton has more lately taken up, with the view of placing the common-sense philosophy on a more coherent footing, are shown to be open to serious critical objections; in particular, the fundamental assumption on which the whole system of the latter is made to turn, is disputed with great plausibility. In the act of sensible percep tion," Sir William says, "I am conscious of two things:-of myself as the perceiving subject, and of an external reality in relation to my sense as the object perceived. Each of these is apprehended equally and at once in the same indivisible energy;" or, as he elsewhere phrases it, "in the same indivisible moment of intuition." But, as Mr. Spencer urges, this simultaneity of subject is in many cases, as in the perception of distance, no primary law of consciousness, but the result of constant association, and, after all, apparent as it may be, is no proof of real simultaneity. Some able criticisms on the controversy between Dr. Whewell and Mr. Mill, on the subject of necessary truths, clear the ground, at length, for the simple cardinal formula on which he rests the axioms of all demonstration. A belief which is proved by the inconceivableness of its negation to invariably exist, is true. This is the assumption on which every conclusion whatever ultimately rests. We have no other guarantee for the reality of consciousness, of sensations, of personal existence; we have no other guarantee for any axiom; we have no other guarantee for any step in a demonstration. Hence, as being taken for granted in every act of the understanding, it must be regarded as the universal postulate. But are not many things continually proved true, the negation of which seemed previously self-evident? Take, as an instance, the Greek philosophers (and, we might add, many modern divines), who could not credit the existence of antipodes. Here, says our author, in reply, we are dealing, not with one single state of consciousness, but many states, and the connexions between them. The act of thought is here decomposable into many beliefs, each involving the postulate; by which multiplication of the process, the chance of error, or mental lapsus, is introduced in the same ratio. But that will always be the most certain conclusion, "at which, starting from the postulate itself, we arrive by the fewest assumptions of the postulate." "We instinctively hold it more certain that 2 and 2 make 4, than that 5+7+6+9+8 make 35; and for this reason, because every use of the postulate involves some risk of error; so that "we lose faith in a long series of steps, however logical they may seem, unless we can test the inference by appeal to fact; that is, unless we can get at the inference by a single use of the postulate." In the Second Part the application of this fundamental test to the several processes of inference is developed in a series of discussions, involving many novel and ingenious principles of logic in relation to quantitative and qualitative reasoning. To the use of the syllogism, he brings forward objections which are by no means new, and on which, did our space permit, we should offer some remarks of dissent. But, in closing our review of a work, the perusal of which has, in many parts, called up feelings of admiration and pleasure, we cannot but express our regret that the author has not been guided by his own criterion of truth, to admit the reality of many fundamental and universal ideas, which seem to have been excluded from his system at the dictates of that soulless, mechanical theorism to which he has submitted But here the argument approaches the con fines of moral and religious questions. Into this portion of the mental history of man his immediate object does not lead him to enter. But, from analogy, we may well be fearful of the treatment which these important topics are likely to receive under a system such as we have seen applied to his intellectual and vital powers. On the subject of volition, indeed, on which all questions relating to the ethical or religious life must ultimately turn, we are left in no doubt as to his conclusions, though we would fain persuade ourselves that his expressions thereon have been hastily written, or not maturely weighed, coinciding, as they do, with the most obvious, not to say obsolete, speculations of Hobbes. The subjective illusion, in which the notion of freewill commonly originates, is strengthened by a corresponding objective illusion. The actions of other individuals, lacking as they do that constancy, that uniformity, habitually seen in phenomena known to obey fixed laws, appear to be lawless;-appear to be under no necessity of following any particular order, and are so supposed to be determined by the unknown independent something which we call the will. But, as I need hardly say, this seeming indeterminateness in the mental succession is an illusion consequent upon the extreme complication of the forces in action. The composition of causes is so intricate, and, from moment to moment, so varied, that the effects are not calculable. Nevertheless, these effects are really as conformable to law as the simplex reflex actions. To reduce the general question to its simplest form: -Psychical changes either conform to law, or they do not. If they do not conform to law, this work, in common with all works on the subject, is sheer nonsense; no science of Psychology is possible. If they do conform to law, there cannot be any such thing as free-will. (Page 619.) We cannot now enter upon the well-worn controversy between Liberty and Necessity, or even linger to point out at length the ambiguity which, as usual, lurks under the use of the word law in the respective divisions of the dilemma thus stated. To be convinced à priori that the acts of volition are obedient to fixed laws, true. transcending as they do our powers to analyze and determine them, is no step towards the proof that they are reducible to those same laws which we have deduced from observation of mechanical or cosmical phenomena. We ask only to be referred to our previously established test-the Universal Postulate. That belief which is universally held, and the contrary to which it is impossible in conception to hold, is That which every conscious impulse, which every deliberate act implies or takes for granted, which every argument destined to disprove must necessarily establish the more strenuously it is urged, cannot be set aside in the conclusion as baseless and illusory. Granted, that our limited faculties fail to harmonize the conflicting conceptions of Law and Liberty. What is this but a confession, such as experience forces upon us daily, of the existence of mysteries not wholly to be solved by creatures con beings the incongruity disappears, their concepIf to any higher order of Non divina divinis, sed rationibus pendimus et tions must include elements beyond our reach. commentamur humanis. (Arnobius.) stituted as we are? The Art of Perfumery, and the Methods of obtaining the Odours of Plants, with Instructions for the Manufacture of Perfumes for the Handkerchief, Scented Powders, Odorous Vinegar, Dentifrices, Pomatums, Cosmetiques, Perfumed Soap, dc. By G. W. SEPTIMUS PIESSE, Analytical Chemist. To which is added an Appendix on the Colours of Flowers, Artificial Fruit Essences, dc. London: Longmans. 1855. We have long held that perfumery is an art, and one by no means to be underrated. It is advantageous medicinally, and, in such a light, may be considered more useful than painting or sculpture. As an appeal to the senses, it harmonizes with music, and denotes the characters of individuals as distinctly as dress or bearing. "Health," says Mr. Piesse, has often been restored, when life and death trembled in the balance, by the mere sprinkling of essence of cedrat in a sick chamber." The use of frankincense in the services of the Roman Catholic Church is an element as conducive to serious devotion as powerful as the anthem or the gorgeous procession; and, in our every-day life, the perfumes chosen by the woman of refinement are as clear a definition of her individuality, as the grosser musk, patchouly, or verbena, from the flaunting garments of the vulgar and the unchaste. Nature, that greatest of artists, has given us a lesson on the subject, and irrefragable proof of her intentions; for observers have discovered that, from the flowers most distinguished by beauty of form, emanate the most fragrant odours.* From the earliest times perfumes were considered not only a luxury, but a necessity. The use of incense was prescribed to Aaron in the ritual observances of the Hebrews:— "Stacte, and onycha, and galbanum; these sweet spices with pure frankincense." It was "holy unto the Lord." And from this religious custom "the royal prophet drew that beautiful simile of his, when he petitioned that his prayers might ascend before the Lord like incense." Amongst the ancients, and especially the Romans, perfumery was an essential of the toilet. The poet engages sympathies on behalf of Rufillus smelling of pastilles, in contrast with Gorgonius redolent of he-goat. Yet in England, this art, like others, is still in its infancy. Prince Albert has shown our backwardness in benefiting by the gifts of civilization; and although we give him credit for his perspicuity, and acknowledge the truth of his • Linnæus. 66 charges, we must accuse him as the cause of one deficiency, inasmuch as, at the Great Exhibition of 1851, "no person having any practical knowledge of perfumery was placed on the jury of Class IV. or XXIX." Had such been the case," Mr. Piesse continues, "the desires of the exhibitors would have been realized, and European perfumers benefited, by the introduction of new odours from the East." But there is another cause for the backwardness of the art in England; and this, our author states, springs from those who follow it as a trade, maintaining a mysterious secrecy about their processes. Mr. Piesse kindly removes the veil, and we are ushered into the presence of the Deity of Perfumes : Though many of the finest perfumes come from the East Indies, Ceylon, Mexico, and Peru, the South of Europe is the only real garden of utility to the perfumer. Grasse and Nice are the principal seats of the art from their geographical position, the grower, within comparatively short distances, has at command that change of climate best fitted to bring to perfection the plants required for his trade. On the sea-coast, his cassim grows without fear of frost, one night of which would destroy all the plants for a season; while, nearer the Alps, his violets are found sweeter than if grown in the warmer situations, where the orange-tree and mignionette bloom to perfection. England can claim the superiority in the growth of lavender and peppermint. The essential oils extracted from these plants grown at Mitcham, in Surrey, realize eight times the price in the market of those produced in France or elsewhere, and are fully worth the difference for delicacy of odour. We must refer our readers to the volume itself for the various modes of extracting the perfumes from flowers, viz., expression, distillation, maceration, and absorption. The introductory remarks on the subject are, however, not long, and contain some interesting statistics: The extensive flower-farms in the neighbourhood of Nice, Grasse, Montpellier, and Cannes, in France, at Adrianople (Turkey in Europe), at Broussa and Uslak (Turkey in Asia), and at Mitcham, in England, in a measure indicate the commercial importance of that branch of chemistry called perfumery. British India and Europe consume annually, at the very lowest estimate, 150,000 gallons! of perfumed spirits, under various titles, such as eau de Cologne, essence of lavender, esprit de rose, &c. The art of perfumery does not, however, confine itself to the production of scents for the handkerchief and bath, but extends to imparting odour to inodorous bodies, such as soap, oil, starch, and grease, which are consumed at the toilette of fashion. Some idea of the commercial importance of this art may be formed, when we state that one of the large perfumers of Grasse and Paris employs annually 80,000 lbs. of orange flowers, 60,000 lbs. of cassie-flowers, 54,000 lbs. of rose-leaves, 32,000 lbs. of jasmine-blossoms, 32,000 lbs. of voilets, 20,000 of tubereuse, 16,000 lbs. of lilac, besides rosemary, mint, lemon, citron, thyme, and other odorous plants in larger proportion. In fact, the quantity of odoriferous substances used in this way is far beyond the conception of those even used to abstract statistics. Mr. Piesse has really conferred a service on his fellow-creatures. Ess bouquet, that scent so delicately expensive and tantalisingly mysterious, is no longer the private property of Bayley and Blews, Cockspur Street. We here give its history, and, in Mr. Piesse's own words, the recipe for its manufacture : The reputation of this perfume has given rise to numerous imitations of the original article, more particularly on the continent. In many of the shops in Germany and in France will be seen bottles labelled in close imitation of those sent out by Bayley and Co., Cockspur Street, London, who are, in truth, the original makers. Were we able to follow the author through his odorous career, we might lay bare more secrets of the prison-house. The Bastille of perfumes has been mercilessly thrown open; its inmates run wild, and tell us of little illusions of the toilet, with which we are reluctant to become acquainted. Is it not enough to understand soap, without penetrating into hair-dyes, rouges, rusma or depilatory, and whitening? Even the sacred character of an English dressing-room is violated, not to speak of the sanctum of Eastern seraglios. The Appendix is partly made up of a corre |