Our speculations on this point are, however, comparatively vain, for we cannot possibly determine who first discovered it, or who first utilised it as a condiment to food: all we really know is that it has become universal, and that from time immemorial; but whether the Egyptians, Chinese, or Hindoos first made use of it, will be one of those dark secrets the solution of which may interest the curious and ingenious, and test the patience and erudition of the profound. Such an investigation might probably be considered by some as unprofitable, even if it were attended with success. To such I do not think it will be unjust or irrelevant to observe that many scientific discussions which from time to time have occupied the learned world have been, as far as the results are concerned, not of much moment to humanity at large. For instance, of what practical utility is the modern theory of evolution, upon which so much erudition of a minute kind, and thought, is expended, except as indicative of the ingenuity of the author? Is science at all advanced when we are gravely told that the human organism springs from protoplasm, and that plastidules consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and that they possess souls? It is true that these abstruse inquiries have been productive of inciting a greater desire for studying the workings of nature, and a great deal of which previous generations were profoundly ignorant has been ingeniously disclosed, and accurately elucidated, for one is bound to admit that, though in many instances their researches have failed in their ultimate results, they have been the indirect cause of giving a remarkable impetus to scientific investigation. Many recondite subjects have thus been exhaustively analysed, unintentionally, owing to the anxiety and eagerness of the authors to arrive at the goal of their wishes; for while they are seeking for that which probably will never be found, they discover others which, to all intents and purposes, very likely would never have been conceived of. Perhaps these remarks may be considered unjust and hypercritical as regards their researches into the mysteries of life, and do not appear to give sufficient importance to those philosophical deductions and enunciations, which the authors no doubt demand as an imperative right; for scientific physicists are apt to be tyrannical, and are not over-endued with the virtue of practicality, and naturally do not like their opinions and metaphysical reveries relegated to that region which Milton humorously baptized the “Paradise of Fools,” but prefer their speculations to be regarded as irrefragable facts. As this is, however, the age for far-fetched theories, I think we may be allowed with perfect fairness to discuss a subject which has partially escaped the eyes of the inquisitive; and if it is not treated so elegantly as the learned theses of the leaders of science and philosophy of to-day, I cannot help thinking that we