length that president remaineth the overseer and inward ruler of the bounds, even until death; but the other, floating about and being assigned to no member, keeps the oversight over the particular pilots of the members, being clear and never at rest or keeping holiday." Notwithstanding the affected and euphuistic jargon of the above passages, it is evident that VAN HELMONT'S idea is very similar to that of GALEN. By seminal likeness, we are to understand an aptitude in matter to take on certain determinate forms, and this may be supposed to differ not very essentially from those laws, which govern matter in crystallization. But even this seminal likeness, as we perceive, is a sort of abstraction, very analogous to the Galenical caliditas; for it is the more inward spiritual kernel of the seed, whereby the matter is enabled to enjoy a certain degree of activity, the degree of which is much increased by the union of the air, or archeus, with it. So the caliditas of GALEN, which, after all, is matter, gives to its subject the powers which it enjoys. GLISSON, speaking of the natura seminalis, says that it is a certain or specific essence, superadded to mere elementary principles, by means of which mixt bodies adopt certain determinate forms, and acquire the faculty of performing essential operations, more noble than those which belong to naked elements. We regret very much that we have been unable to procure a copy of GLISSON'S treatise de vita naturae, which, so far as we know, can not be had in this country. We shall, therefore, furnish our readers with the following passage from the Biographie Medicale, from the pen of JOURDAIN. "The name of GLISSON occupies an honourable place in the history of medicine, because to him we are indebted for the first elements of the physiological doctrine of the present day. Instead of directing his attention to movements alone, as the iatro-mathematicians, and even, to a certain extent, the animists had done, he referred to vitality all the phenomena of nature, of whatever kind, and attempted to reduce them to one, common principle. To this end he admitted, that matter is originally endued with forces inherent in it, and that living bodies in particular, are invested in their organs with a radical force, which, put in play by stimulants, whether internal or external, gives rise to all the phenomena of life. He even went so far as to assert, that sympathy may be explained by referring to the intercommunication of this force, to which he gave the name of irritability." We shall also cite from SPRENGEL, a passage which throws some light on his theory.