5. "It causes matter _to continually vary in composition._" Bravo! we unhesitatingly take two steps forward on the strength of this most comforting assurance. Life is assuredly getting the upperhand of Matter (with a big M.) It is no longer a mere "undiscovered correlate of motion"--a hypothetical slave to matter only. It wrestles with it--throws it into the shade. We involuntarily take several more steps forward. 6. "Life is capable of self-multiplication"--has almost a creative faculty. Here we interject a perfect bravura of "bravoes," and, stepping boldly up to the front, demand of Professor Bastian to "throw up the sponge," take a back seat, and there--formulate us a new definition of "life." But our London University materialist is not entirely satisfied with his own definition, or at least with the moral effect of it. He thinks that all these attempts to define life as a non-entity only, tend to keep up the demoralizing idea that it is an actual entity. We entirely agree with him in this conclusion. The infelicity and entire inconclusiveness of the definition he has vouchsafed us can hardly have any other effect. He sees this himself, and hence this foot-note to his great work on Ephemeromorphs: "Inasmuch as no life can exist without an organism, of which it is the phenomenal manifestation, so it seems comparatively useless to attempt to define this phenomenal manifestation alone--and, what is worse, such attempts tend to keep up the idea that life is an independent entity."