advance of molecular physics, we shall by-and-by be able to see our way as clearly from the constituents of water to the properties of water, as we are now able to deduce the operations of a watch from the form of its parts or the manner in which they are put together.' Why, then, when carbonic acid, water, and ammonia disappear, and an equivalent weight of the matter of life makes its appearance in their place, should we assume the existence in the living matter of a something which has no representative or correlative in the unliving matter that gave rise to it? Why imagine that into the newly formed hydro-nitrogenised oxide of carbon a something called vitality entered and took possession? 'What better philosophical status has vitality than aquosity?' 'If scientific language is to possess a definite and constant signification, we are,' he considers, 'logically bound to apply to protoplasm or the physical basis of life the same conceptions as those which are held to be legitimate elsewhere.' Wherefore, he concludes, that 'if the phenomena exhibited by water are its properties, so are those presented by protoplasm _its_ properties,' and that if it be correct to describe 'the properties of water as resulting from the nature and disposition of its component molecules,' there can be no 'intelligible ground for refusing to say that the properties of protoplasm result from the nature and disposition of its molecules.' Here, however, our lay preacher candidly warns us that by the vast majority of his clerical brethren this doctrine would be denounced as rankest heresy, and that whoever accepts it is placing his foot on the first rung of a ladder which, in most people's estimation, is the 'reverse of Jacob's, and leads to the antipodes of heaven.' He frankly owns that the terms of his propositions are distinctly materialistic: nay, that whoever commits himself to them will be temporarily landed in 'gross materialism.' Not the less, however, does he, mingling consolation with admonition, recommend us to plunge boldly into the materialistic slough, promising to point out a way of escape from it, and insisting, indeed, that through it lies the only path to genuine spiritualistic truth.