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    Whu-e the season is drawing to a languid close , and all Literature partakes of a " recess , " it may not be without interest to many if- we sharpen anticipation , by reminding them that Thackeray ' s new serial will open the Autumn season . It is announced to commence in October . Its title is to be The Newcomes—not a very promising title ; but the signature of the writer is attractive enough , to dispense with eye-catching labels !

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    Thejee is a story told of some omnivorous and omniscient philosopher , who read everything , knew everything , and foresaw everything , being suddenly , yet gravely , asked if he had seen Biot ' s paper on the " malleability of light ? " and replying "Yes : he sent it me last week . " The malleability of light is a good joke ; and yet such are the marvels of scientific discovery , and such the outrages committed on the propriety of language , that one might hesitate before suspecting even light not to be malleable . The " polarization of light" is not much less absurd ; and yet it is the indication of a most important phenomenon .

    And what a lesson it teaches of the frivolity and foolishness which would attempt to coerce Science within the limits of the obviously useful , —which would say to any proposed investigation , "What is the use of it ? Nothing can , at first sight , seem more remote from any practical advantage , than that we should be able , by a bit of Iceland spar , to twist a ray of light ; but enlarged experience teaches , that , in the first place , all knowledge is necessarily of practical advantage , and , in the second , by means of this twisted . rav . we can lead investigation into recesses inaccessible to . others . twisted raywe can lead investigation into recesses inaccessible to . others .

    , By the polarizing prism the Manufacturer , the Chemist , the Anatomist , the Astronomer , are severally guided . The farmer can ascertain , by it , the amount of sugar in the w ortj the manufacturer can detect annealed from unannealed class , while , for the man of science , there were chemical reagents , and the most powerful microscopes are useless—this twisted ray of light gives indisputable evidence . Among the great results of this application of polarized light is certainly the insight it has given into the structure of certain organic substances . If

    a ray of polarized light be transmitted through solutions of albumen , of sugar , of various vegetable acids and alkalis , and some essential oils , the ray will be found to turn upon itself , so to speak ; if the solutions are then crystallized they will be incomplete crystals , i . e ., dissymmetrical . These two properties are always found together , and are probably related causally . They betray a difference in the molecular arrangement of organic substances , an arrangement which , be it observed , persists even during solution , therefore belonging to the organic molecule . Could we but see a molecule of tartaric acid , we should doubtless find that its atoms were not arranged with ' the symmetry of an inorganic molecule .

    The French chemists arc actively engaged in investigating this subject , and M . Pasteuk , to whom ive owe the decomposition of racemic acid into an acid of right-handed , and an acid of left-handed , polarization , has announced the artificial transformation of the two with the formation of an acid symmetrical and inoperative on the ray of polarized light . It . seems nothing—who shall calculate its consequences ?

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    Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforcethem . —Edinburgh Review .

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    832 T HE LEADER . [ Satpbday ,

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    HOOKS ON OUJfc TAIJLK , Sketches of Russian Life in the Caucasus . 'B y A . Eusso . Inpram , Cooko , anil Co . The . Poetical Works of Alexander Pope . Vol . I . Ingrain , Cooko , mid Co ! IVhitthigton and the Knight Sana-Term . Jiy JMisa E . M . Stewart . Jil ^ nun , Cooko , and Co The Universal Library . Ingram , Cooko , and Co . " Jjawson ' a Merchant'x Afai / azine . ' ± \ ji >_ ^ Dny The . Vices ; or , Le . ct . urcn to Young Men . By Itev . 1 . 1 . W . Beeohor . Clarice , JSeoton ' , ; md Co ! Lectures on Intemperance . By Lynmii Booolior . Clarko , lU'c . lou ' , and Co ! Louis XVII . Hit Life--His Suffering—His Death . By A . Do BciuicIichiio . Tnmnlniod l > y W Jlazlitt , JCsq . 2 Voln . Vizfilelly and Co ' The . Emigrant ' s Guide to the Gold , Fields . Piper , BroUiorH and Co The Jiiot / raphical Magazine . . Ttirtriclfjo and Oiilcey " The Prospective Review . John Olmimiiiii Chapman t Library far the . People . Phases if Faith . By V . W . Newman . John Chapman Readable . Hooks . Three Tales , By ( . ho Countoms IVArlouville . Clarke , Beel . on and Co ' ' Spirit Mapping in linalnvil and America . Clurko ' , Breton and Co ' liohria Antiquarian Library . Matthew <[/ 'Westminster ' s Chronicle . Vol . II . 11 , Q Bohn

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    T ? AMAltOK AND THE VESTIGES . Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation . Tenth Edition . With extonBivo Additions and Emendations , nnd . iiluntniLed by numerous Enymvingn on Wood . T . Churchill . [ Tirrun aiiticmc ] " Wi ! now comn to an appreciation of tho validity and imperfection of tho Povoloprnent Hypothesis , nn set forth in tho Vestiges . There is a current ; notion , industriously circulated by adversaries , thai ; tho Vestiges is only a reproduction of Lamarck . 1 ' eopio arc so very fond of talking about ; what they do not understand , and of lining wlobmted names with easy familiarity / that w o way attrilmto this " accusation more to such' vanity ' than to deliberate desire of falsification ; but it is incumbent on us hero to state that , as ovorypno who has read Lamarck known , the Vestiges , so far from reproducing Lamarck's . Hypothesis , hikes as directly opposite a view of it as tho nature of tho caso admits . Wo may render their difference appreciablo if wo say that , whilo Lamarck is too much of a " materialist , " tho author of tho Vestiges is too much of a " metaphysician ; " one lays tho wholo stress of his argument on " external eircumstances , " tho other on a " pre-ordained plan . " Lamarck was ono-sided , tho Vestiges in metaphysical and false . More of this anon . Meanwhile lot us call attention to tho fact , that the Vestiges , oven in tho first edition , so far from reproducing Lamarok ' n Hypothesis , pointed out what Boomed its orror , and

    spoke of it with a superciliousness which we are glad to see replaced in subsequent editions , W a more respectful tone , one more worthy of tW great thinker , selected by De Blamville as the representative of tho French school , compared with whom De Blainville considers Cuvier to have been , a mere litterateur . Here are the passages to be compared : —; FIKST EDITION . TENTH EDITION . " Early in this century , M . Lamarck , " Early in this century , M . Lamarck a naturalist of the highest character , one of the most distinguished of modern suggested an hypothesis of organic pro- naturalists , suggested that the gradation gress which deservedly incurred much of animals depended upon some general ridicule , although it contained a glimmer law which it was important fop i , t <) of the truth . He surmised , and endea- discover . So far he was right ; but the voured , with a great deal of ingenuity , to theory which he consequentl y formed prove , that one being advanced in the with regard to the causes of the varieties course of generations to another , in cori- of animated being , was so far from sequence merely of its experience of being adequate to account for the facts , wants calling for the exercise of its that it has had scarcel y a single adfaculties in a particular direction , by herent . What M . Lamarck chiefly which exercise new developments of grounded upon was the well-known organs took place , ending in variations physiological fact , that use or exercise sufficient to constitute a new species , strengthens and enlarges an organ , Thus he thought that a bird would be while disuse equally atrophies it . He . driven by necessity to seek its food in conceived that , an animal being brought the water , and that , in its efforts to into new circumstances , and called upon swim , the outstretching of its claws to accommodate itself to these , the exwould lead to the expansion of the inter- ertions which it consequentl y made to mediate membranes , and it would thus that effect caused the rise of new parts ; become web-footed . Now it is possible on the contrary , when new circumtbat wants and the exercise of faculties stances left certain existing parts unhave entered in some manner into the used , these parts gradually ceased to production of the phenomena which we exist . Something analogous was , lie have been considering ; but certainly not thought , produced in vegetables by in the way suggested by Lamarck , whose changes in their nutrition , in . their whole notion is obviously so inadequate absorption and transpiration , and in the to account for the rise of the organic quantity of caloric , light , air , and kingdoms , that we only can place it with moisture which they received . This pity among this follies of the wise . Had principle , with time , he deemed snffithe laws of organic development been cient to have produced the advance known in his time , his theory mig ht from , the monad to the mammal . His have been of a more imposing 1 kind . It illustrations were chiefly of the following

    is upon these that the . present hypo- nature . The bird which is attracted to thesis is mainly founded . I take exist- the water by the necessity of seeking ing natural means , and shew them to there its food , wishes to move about on have been capable of producing , all the the surface of the flood , and for-this existing organisms , with the simple and purpose strikes out its toes . Through easily conceivable aid of a higher genera- the consequent repeated separations of tive law , which we perhaps still see the toes , the skin uniting them nt tho operating upon a limited scale . I also roots is extended , and at length becomes go beyond the French philosopher to a webbed . In like manner the shorevery important point , the original Divine bird which lias no desire to swim , but conception of all the forms of being has to approach the water for food , is which these natural laws were only in- constantly subject to sink in the mud . strumenta in working out and realizing . The bird , disliking this , exerts all its The actuality of such a conception I hold efforts to lengthen its legs ; the result to be strikingly demonstrated by the dis- is , that by continual habit for ninny coveries of Macleay , Vigors , and Swain- generations , the legs of this order do at fion , with respect to the affinities and length become long and bare , as we see analogies of animal ( and by implication them . Tho error of the theory is in vegetable ) organisms . Such a regularity giving this adaptive principle too much in tho structure , as we may call it , of the to do . What undoubtedly is effectual classification of animals , as is shewn in in modifying the exterior peculiarities their systems , is totally irreconcilable of animnlg , was obviously insufficient to with the idea of form going on to form account for the great grades of organizamercly ns needs nnd wishes in tho tion . In the present day , wo have animals themselves dictated . Had such superior light from geology and phy sibeen the case , all would have been ir- ology , and hence comes tho suggestion regular , as things arbitrary necessarily of a process analogous to ordinary are . But , lo , tho wholo plan of being in gestation for advancing organic lifo as symmetrical as the plan of a house , or through its grades , in tho cour . se of ft the laying out of an old-fashioned gar- long but definite spaco of time , '" den ! This must needs have been de- only a recourse to external conditions ^' vised nnd arranged for beforehand . And a means of producing tho exterior what a , preconception or forethought characters . It must ncverthelestf l >" have wo here ! Let us only for a mo- acknowledged that tho germ of tl" » ment consider how various are tho ex- natural view of tho history of tho »» ' " ternnl physical conditions in which mated world is presented in tho w' » rK animals live—climate , soil , temperature , of Lamarck . " land , water , air — tho peculiarities of food , and tho various ways in which it in to ho Nought ; the peculiar circumstances in which tho bufiinens of reproduction and tho enre-tnking of tho young aro to ho attended to—all those required to bo taken into account , and thousands of animals wore to bo formed suitublu in organization and mental character for the concerns ., they wcro to have with thoso Turious conditions and circumstances—horo a tooth fitted for crushing nuts ; there a claw fitted to servo hb a . hook for suspension ; hero to repress tooth and develop a bony net-work instead ; thero to arrange for a bronchial apparatus , to last only for a certain hriof timo ; and nil thofio animals woro to bo sohometl out , oaoh no a part of n . great vnngo , which wns on tho wholo to bo

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 27, 1853, page 832, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2001/page/16/