in all its essential parts having been long since broached by the celebrated French naturalist, Lamarck. It was the idea of this otherwise admirable zoologist that in the beginning the most simple animal forms were created; that these lower animals, possessed of certain plastic powers, and actuated by an internal sentiment or desire, were enabled to acquire, by the mere force of these desires or appetences, new and higher organs at will; that a slug, for example, meeting with some obstacle or substance in its path, and having the wish to feel it, applied the fore-part of the head for that purpose, till, by such actions often repeated, a stimulus was excited, and at length two or four tentacles or horns were produced. This seems absurd enough; but Lamarck's account of the development of the respiratory organs is even more palpably opposed to the certain evidences of comparative and developmental anatomy. He says that this system commences by the breathing tubes possessed by insects and other articulate animals, and which are called trachea; that these became changed into branchiæ or gills ; and that at last the branchia themselves were definitely converted into lungs. Now this is all pure speculation; but, at the time when it was first announced, it captivated many shallow people, because it seemed to be in accordance with ascertained facts. Fortunately, a wiser spirit has since been infused into these pursuits, and the more accurate knowledge thus acquired has swept away the fine-spun theories of Lamarck, by showing, among other things, that this conversion of gills into lungs cannot possibly be true, inasmuch as all vertebrate animals, whatever may be the organ by which they ultimately respire, possess at the same time, in the embryotic condition, though usually in a rudimentary condition, branchiæ and lungs, a combination which is temporarily seen in the common tadpole, and permanently in the perenni-branchiate amphibia, such as the proteus, the siren, and the axolotl.

Noting the similarity between these fantastic hypotheses of Lamarck and the equally absurd ones of our author, we were rather curious to see how the latter would regard these kindred researches. They are thus handled :—

"Now it is possible that wants and the exercise of faculties have entered in some manner into the production of the phenomena which we have been considering; but certainly not in the way suggested by Lamarck, whose whole notion is obviously inadequate to account for the rise of the organic kingdoms. Had the laws of organic development been known in his time, his theory might have been of a more imposing kind."

It argues little we think for the writer's acquaintance with the intricacies of developmental anatomy that he should thus have appealed to its laws as confirming the notions of Lamarck, whilst, as we have shown, it is precisely by these very laws that the whole system has been overturned. A careful perusal of these Vestiges has shown us the cause of these and similar palpable mistakes; for it is continually made apparent that the writer, although he has picked up from reviews and elementary text-books many of the isolated facts of developmental anatomy, has not grasped the laws of which they are but the outward and visible signs. It would be altogether incompatible with our limits to quote the many instances which support this position -one only must in this place suffice. It is asserted, p. 196, that in mammals "the gills exist and act at an early stage of the foetal state, but afterwards go back and appear no more." In this very short passage there are several errors; first, it is not true that gills exist exist at any period in mammals and birds-there is merely a tracing out of the branchial apparatus by the formation of branchial fissures, arches, and blood-vessels; second, it is not true

that the gills are ever active in mammals or birds, and the assertion to the contrary argues a complete ignorance of the laws in obedience to which these transient forms are assumed; third, the gills, or, to use more correct language, their typical representatives, "do not go back and appear no more" in mammifers, but, on the contrary, go forward and appear―albeit, in new forms, with which it is clear the writer has no acquaintance, though the metamorphoses herein implicated are among some of the most interesting phenomena of that which forms a staple commodity in the Vestigesorganic development.

Our readers will perhaps bear with us whilst we briefly trace the transformations of the upper branchial formation, which in the above quotation is erroneously stated to disappear. The fissure, which is comparable to one of the gill-apertures seen in the common skate, lamprey, and shark, and which at first leads completely through from the skin of the neck into the back of the mouth or throat, subsequently in birds and mammals, becomes divided by the deposit of a plastic substance into an outer fissure opening on the skin, and an inner fissure opening into the throat. By the continuation of the metamorphosis, the outer fissure becomes converted into the external tube of the ear, and the inner fissure into the tympanum and passage called Eustachian leading from it into the throat, whilst the plastic matter above noticed is transformed into the membrani tympani. A similar but more limited transformation occurs in reptiles, among which the batrachia are most interesting. The account above given shows, that as the tympanum is formed from the branchial apparatus, no animal can possess that part of the ear and the gills at the same time: hence no fish has a tympanum, nor does the tadpole, which is so closely allied to the class of pisces, possess that part; though it is acquired in the process of metamorphosis, and distinctly appears in the frog. The same law applies to the perenni-branchiate amphibia, some of which do retain, as the name implies, the gills throughout life, such as the siren and axolotl, and consequently have no tympanum, whilst others lose the branchia and acquire the drum of the ear.

The author is not more happy in his comparative anatomy than in his attempt, to detect the secret of the zoological series. Thus, in speaking of the struthionidæ or birds of the ostrich family, he states they possess a diaphragm (the great muscle of respiration), which is wanting in other birds. All we can say is, if he will condescend to walk into Leadenhall Market, and buy a rook, he will find upon dissection a very well-developed diaphragm. After such a slip as this, it is not surprising, that he adopts, for the purpose of supporting the utterly untenable position that in the geological formations the simpler orders only of each class are met with in the earlier strata, the prevailing error that the cartilaginous fishes are inferior to the osseous fishes. We hold, on the contrary, that by appealing to that which in truth is the animal, and which must ever determine the precise position of each class, the nervous system namely, it will be seen that, although in the myxinoid and cyclostomatous divisions the brain is very simple, yet that in the highest orders, the rays and sharks, the encephalon mounts upwards in organization above that of any osseous fish. In keeping with this high development of the central organs of animal life, it is seen that the heterocercal form of tail prevails, an evident and recognised approach to the next class above, namely reptiles; in fact, in the skate there is no longer the tail of the fish, but of the newt or lizard. We say nothing of the ovo-viviparous form of generation displayed by many chondropterygians, although it is a

point in the inquiry, because it is one of the functions of the vegetative life, which is most liable to mislead, if it be assumed as a guide in determining the relative elevation of the animate tribes.

Having exhausted our space, we must here pause. In our next number we propose to conclude our notice of the Vestiges, by considering what is evidently regarded by the author as his stronghold-organic development.

RIP VAN WINKLE.

A LECTURE DELIVERED BY FRANK IVES SCUDAMORE.

We have all read or heard of Rip Van Winkle; how that he went forth one summer eve into the deep woods, and there slept; how that on waking he found his slumber had lasted a century; and how that, on wandering back to his old haunts, he found a new generation, which remembered him not. We have all heard or read of this; and perhaps, in the fulness of our self-satisfied wisdom, we have laughed at it as a poor, foolish story, and have turned, after some inward chiding of ourselves for so wasting our time, to what we were pleased to term weightier matter, better worth our deep attention. But if we have so judged this poor story, it seems to me, my friends, that we have somewhat erred. The shallowness was in our brain that we could not discern the deep moral of the tale,—a moral which, rightly considered, may lead us on to think upon that which shall be of service to us and ours.

Rip Van Winkle slept, but God, and nature, our great mother, did in no wise sleep. They two, the one subservient to the other, toiled on without cessation, fainting not, nor wearing in their good work. The tide of life ebbed and flowed in its accustomed channel; babes grew and prospered, quitting their mother's arms and struggling into manhood; men waxed old and feeble, and gave place to others; and God's word came down upon the earth, and returned not to him again without accomplishing its end. And those great externals which surround us-which we term inanimate,— these slept not. The heavens dropping fatness, the stars in their ceaseless courses, the earth teeming with good things, the ambitious brook struggling in its narrow bed to make itself a river, and the great sea itself,-these slept not, nor loitered, but did the work allotted to them, plainly pointing out to man that his mission here is toil-toil that he may win by the sweat of his brow the inheritance so long forfeited.

Rip Van Winkle slept and was not changed; but the busy world around, which had toiled on through that long century, had changed in much, so that he knew it not. The dank, thick brake, fit only for the lurking place of beasts, near which he had lain him down to sleep, had given place to the broad strong oak, fit for the use of man; the little flower, which his weary head on lying down had well nigh crushed, had done its part a thousand times in the work of reproduction-blooming to its full extent, withering on its taper stem, falling on the bosom of its mother-earth, and fertilizing the ground with its decaying leaves; the forest, once pathless, had become a ploughed field; the brook, which babbled uselessly of old, had

worn for itself a deeper channel, and turned a thousand mill-wheels as it rolled along; in every place where silence reigned before, the busy hum of men went up to heaven, whilst man played well his part and worshipped God with the daily labour of his frame. And this change had been no sudden one,—far from it: it had stolen on slowly, silently, surely; yet Rip Van Winkle marked it not. To his astonished gaze the whole scene seemed the effect of enchantment. Need I say, that to those who live as Rip Van Winkle slept, all changes, gradual though they be, appear as sudden as though they were the produce of a day. Believe me, my friends, there is somewhat of the Rip Van Winkle in us all. Are there no changes going on around us, hourly, daily, through all time, which some men mark not? changes in the temper, feelings, and opinions of the great mass— changes in the state and condition of all classes-changes in their wills and natures, deeply threatening their happiness and peace-changes which some men mark not, so gradual and silent are they, so fast bound are these men by the care of themselves-bound as fast as though the deep woods environed them and a charmed sleep hung heavy on their eyelids? My friends, it were best that they should awake and change also, lest their sleep last so long that their present modes and feelings be forgotten, and a sudden revolution come upon them, bidding them arise and look out upon a new generation which knows them not. Truly, my friends, there are many such men, mere torpid, listless things, who in these past years have done simply nothing, and might as well have slept. For the man who works has some sure hope of watching those changes which he helps to effect; but the man who works not knows not of the mechanism, sees not the secret wheels, thinks nothing, fears nothing, till the engine is well nigh made which shall crush him in the end. For this world is no place for the idle man; he has rightfully no abiding place here, and he had best look around and see that things are changing, tending towards a climax, the end of which bodes no good to him. For, as the old monks wisely expressed that which foolishly they did not practice, Laborare est orare-"to work is to worship"-how then shall the idle man be tolerated much longer?

Some ten days past I stumbled upon an old newspaper, bearing date the 29th March 1835; and the perusal of this old record stirred up such thoughts in my mind as no laboured article on the changes of time could in any way have produced. Surely, thought I, changes have taken place during these last ten years to which I have been asleep, in which dangerous slumber I should still have continued had not the discovery of this old paper caused me to mark the vast difference between 1835 and 1845; thus waking me as it were to the belief that, if I had slept much longer, I should have woke up in a new generation. For men do not altogether think as they thought ten years ago; they do not quite worship, love, and reverence the same objects, or profess the same principles; they are in a great measure changed, some for the worse, some for the better. There is a greater distinction and division between the bad and good, the idle and laborious; which distinction, as it seems to me, grows wider yearly, and will inevitably end in the discomfiture of the idle, unless they speedily mend their ways, and, seeking out what work they have to do, endeavour to do it. Yet this ten years is no great length of time, nor has the change marched quicker during those ten than during any other ten years, seeing that it always progresses at a sure pace upon fixed principles, based on the laws of nature. Judge, therefore, how mistaken those men are whose sleep,

so to speak, has lasted for more than ten years, and who now, roused up by the general shouting of the country, strive to make palatable their old, worn-out, sleep-muddled ideas to a generation which knows them not.

Now, in this old newspaper, I first and chiefly notice that, on Wednesday, March 25, 1835, one Mr. Poutler moved the second reading of a Bill to prohibit Sunday Trading, which Bill, after some discussion, was carried by a majority of seventy-six. Now, an honest and impartial man, living in this present year, and considering this said question, would hardly be disposed to deny that this Bill was a good Bill, and would naturally wonder that any men could be found willing to oppose a measure so suitable to the wants of man, and so consonant with the laws of God. Still more surprised would he be if he heard or read the arguments of the said opponents-arguments which I shall treat with sufficient severity, if I say that they were a disgrace even to the House of Commons; for one member opposed the Bill upon the ground of his remembering that men had been wont in his time to give concerts on the Sabbath-day, at which concerts bishops, and even humbler pastors, were used to attend. I say, my friends, that this member only remembered these things; that these concerts did not exist in 1835, save only in this member's memory, which carried him back some thirty or forty years. It is clear, therefore, to us, that this member had been in a state of coma similar to that of Rip Van Winkle; that he had not opened his mind's eye between the existence of those concerts and the bringing in of this Bill; that he had not marked the altered feelings of his fellow-men; and that, being suddenly roused from his slumber, he exclaimed, with all the hurry of a newly-wakened man, "Men did this thing thirty years ago; suffer them, I pray you, to continue in it still longer." Another sleep-walker there was, who opposed this Bill upon the plea that it would bring thousands to ruin. "To ruin! Why, then, in God's name," an honest man would surely cry, "if to leave off desecrating the Sabbath do ruin men, let them be ruined immediately." For there are for man two kinds of ruin, the one present, the other to come; let him therefore choose quickly, and, if in his besotted folly he will choose the ruin to come, let us by all means in our power hinder him therefrom. So we should think now, and so thought the majority then,—a thought of their's more fortunate for this poor country than all the other jargon of politics which occupied men's minds in those days. For the Bill was passed, and through ten long years the Sabbath has been set apart as God ordained; so that Englishmen have no longer been worse than the uncultivated heathen, who, of their own accord, and by no law of Parliament or other worldly institute, have always set apart one day of the seven as a day of holy rest. And now, my friends, mark the consequence! This has endured for ten years; so that reflective, sleepless men, have throughout all that time had one day in seven whereon they might cease to think of mere coin of the realm, and endeavour to frame some plan for the further benefit of their fellow-men. And what is the result of their meditation? Why, it is simply this that certain men, after long thought, have banded themselves together, and have said to one another, "Look here! behold these Englishmen, these children of a common race, who toil for us earnestly, diligently, all the week through, for certain coins which we give them. True it is, we have bought the labour of their hands, the sweat of their brow, the thewes and sinews of their bodies,-all these are ours; but have we bought their souls also ?-can we in anywise buy a man's soul? Truly we