In endeavouring to give some idea of Abernethy's manner in more sustained compositions, we have made some selections from the Lectures he delivered at the College of Surgeons. Without any pretensions to a critically faultless style, there always seemed to us to be a peculiar simplicity, combined with a broad and comprehensive range of thought. Sometimes, too, he has almost a "curiosa felicitas" in the tone of his expressions; though this was more remarkable, we think, when he felt more free; that is, in his unrivalled teaching at the Hospital, of which we shall endeavour to give a more particular account. As we have before remarked, it is impossible to do full justice to Abernethy, unless we were to publish his works, with a running commentary; and we fear that in the selections we offer we have incurred a responsibility which we shall not properly fulfil. To convey the full, the suggestive merit of even some of the following passages, it would be necessary to state carefully the relation they bear to the state of science, both chemical and physiological, at the time they were written, and the present. The interest of the Lectures is so evenly distributed through the whole, that selection is very difficult; and being obliged to consider our limits, we have, in the absence of a better guide, selected the passages at random, as suggested by our own impressions of them. We therefore can only earnestly recommend the perusal of the Lectures themselves, as equally entertaining and instructive to the general as well as the professional reader. The varied expression and manner, and his fine intellectual countenance, by which he imparted so much interest to his delivery on every subject he touched, will be considered in connection with his success in the art of lecturing, to which these somewhat formal specimens may serve as an introduction. THE APPARENT UNIVERSAL DISTRIBUTION OF SOME POWERFUL FORCE LIKE ELECTRICITY, MAGNETISM, ETC. "When, therefore, we perceive in the universe at large a cause of rapid and powerful motions of masses of inert matter, may we not naturally conclude that the inert molecules of vegetable and animal matter may be made to move in a similar manner by a similar cause?" REPUDIATION OF AN OFTEN-ALLEGED OPINION. "It is not meant that electricity is life. There are strong analogies between electricity and magnetism; and yet I do not know that any one has been hardy enough to assert their absolute identity[40]. I only mean to prove that Mr. Hunter's theory is verifiable, by showing that a subtile substance of a quickly, powerfully mobile nature seems to pervade everything, and appears to be the life of the world; and therefore it is probable that a similar substance pervades organized bodies, and produces similar effects in them. "The opinions which, in former times, were a justifiable hypothesis, seem to me now to be converted into a rational theory[41]." IN RELATION TO MICROSCOPIC OBSERVATION.