The answer given by Mr. Savage, in his concluding discourse, to the question "What is it all for?" will meet with less acceptance. He remarks that all the theories which can be found as to the outcome of things are only variations of three chief theories: (1) that of a future life of rewards and punishments, the theory of Milton's "Paradise Lost"; (2) that of M. Comte, which is well named the religion of humanity; (3) that which regards _spirit_ as having the pre-eminence over matter. As to the first theory, Mr. Savage declares it to be condemned by the intellect, the heart, and the conscience of men. He affirms that the second theory ends in _nothing_, and he endorses the statement of Mr. John Fiske, that "considered intellectually, such a theory puts the world to permanent intellectual confusion." Mr. Savage, therefore, accepts the third theory which "makes immortality a wholly rational thought." He sees the proof of it in the existence of the brain, the conscience, the heart of man, which "are prophecies, since they are the expression of the nature of things, and since they demand the perfect thought, and love, and right." Ω. PROTOPLASM AND LIFE. By _Charles F. Cox_, M. A. New York: N. D. C. Hodges. The first part of Mr. Cox's contribution to the study of what may be termed the literature of the interesting subject he discusses, treats of the Cell doctrine. He traces clearly the changes that have taken place in the protoplasm theory, to which that doctrine belongs, with particular reference to Doctor Beale's _germinal matter_ and Prof. Huxley's _physical basis of life_. In his summary of conclusions, Mr. Cox shows that the original idea of the cell, as propounded by Schleiden and Schwann, has gradually faded away. As he states, the attention of the defenders of the cell doctrine has been forced from one position to another until it is fixed on a germinal point. The same fate has befallen Dr. Beale's ideal living matter, which if an actually visible thing is reduced to "a mere skeleton of his original bioplasm," an attenuated reticulum; while Huxley's physical basis of life, like his _Bathybius_, is relegated to the realm of the imagination. Thus there is "no one visible and tangible substance to which the name protoplasm is rigidly and exclusively applied." Mr. Cox's conclusion as to the nature of the _basal life-stuff_ is that "the only admissible alternative is matter plus vitality or matter minus vitality." This brings us to "the impassable gulf between the not-living and the living"; which we would observe, however, might cease to be impassable if we could properly define the terms "matter" and "vitality."