of the honest labourer in this country, may soon raise himself to a position of affluence, and himself become the employer of labour, and the owner of flocks and herds.' During this stage of his curriculum the convict is no longer pained by the severance of family ties; a liberal Government will, in compliance with his request, send out his wife and children at the cost of the mother country. If, however, the effects of time in weakening the family affections, or the formation of other connections, should render their society irksome or inconvenient, he is privileged to leave his wife and children to be supported by his parish in the old country. Neither are bachelor convicts any longer condemned to celibacy. A paternal Government undertakes, at the cost of this country, to supply an adequate number of young Englishwomen to wive the semi-emancipated convicts. Nay, so kindly considerate are the authorities to secure the convict from annoyance, that an Act has been passed by the colonial legislature, making it penal to speak disparagingly of the convict status in presence of a conditionally pardoned or ticket-of-leave man.

66 After a couple of years spent under these not very grievous restraints, our convict obtains a conditional pardon. Exposure to the night air will no longer be dangerous; he is free to range beyond the not very narrow limits of his police district, or, should he prefer it, to remove to the adjacent colonies, where the cities of Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney afford an ample field for the practice of his former profession, and where, if he has acquired wealth and is a clever fellow, he may get into Farliament, and possibly become one of her Majesty's ministers.

To prove that there is no exaggeration in the picture I have drawn, I will state an actual case, selecting purposely that of a notorious criminal. Redpath, sentenced for life for offences committed under all the concomitants that can aggravate crime and render it inexcusable, arrived in Western Australia 23rd November, 1858, and was discharged on ticket of leave 3rd of June, 1861; during the interval, two and a half years, with the exception of nine months' initiatory stage of solitary confinement, he was employed as a clerk in the Government offices, and enabled to live in luxury in a country where, as stated by Captain Kennedy (query 2,512), there is very little shame attached to his status.' At the expiration of four years he will be free to go where he pleases out of England; relieved from even the figment of restraint to which he is at present subject."

This system, Mr. Torrens maintains, fails-1st, as a formidable deterrent to those lapsing into crime; 2nd, as having no reformatory influence on criminals; 3rd, as not being an advantageous mode of founding colonies.

The pamphlet deserves the perusal of all who are interested in the solution of this great social problem-and who is not?

On Matter and Ether; or, the Secret Laws of Physical Change. By T. RAWSON BIRKS, M.A. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co.

AMONG the controversies of our time, those of science are neither the least in interest, importance, virulence, uor ultimate promise. The molecular theory of the universe, the laws of morphology, the development of species, the antiquity of man, the problems suggested by light, the inferences deducible from forces, the nature of electricity, the productive cause of heat, spontaneous generation, &c., &c., are topics on which, among others, hot contests go on. Controversy may not enable men to unravel the mystery with

which the varied web of creation has been woven within and without, but it can, at least, propose tests for hypotheses, and demand that a certain consistency of fact and thought should be proved before the pseudo-explanations of philosophers be finally accepted as the grand revelation of the purposes, processes, and laws by which the creation stands before us as it is; and, it can estimate the power of intellect and prescience of the various interlocutors who in such debates give evidence. It can also insist on consistency of exposition, and demand that intelligible replies should be given to such queries as arise in thinking minds.

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Even into the territories of science, therefore, we do not hesitate to welcome the controversial spirit,-upholding its usefulness as a critic of thought, a caution to rash innovators to arm themselves for defence when met with defiance, and as a suggester of points liable to be overlooked by the too sanguine and one-ideäed scientist. If, as the author says, men of science feel themselves to be on the verge of some great discovery, but the key which can unlock these various secrets of nature has not yet been attained," it is quite right that the proposers of schemes for disclosing these secrets should be met by interrogations as to the means and likelihoods of their key being the right one, and that the rival claimants of "the power of the keys" should be required to state the grounds upon which they expect men to accept their "key." If it can be shown that the key will not fit the wards, that it is too large or too small, that it has been previously tried and has failed, or if any other let, hindrance, and impediment can be proved against it, the safe need not be touched, or even if it be touched, we need not be afraid of the documents and treasures it contains. Hence, controversy may be useful even on scientific topics.

But scientific thought is not easily popularized, and hence scientific discussion is not readily made accessible to the public. A special culture is required to comprehend the import, and to notice the impact of facts and inductions. To those who possess a scientific bias and culture this work will be highly instructive, if not greatly delightful reading. But it demands somewhat rare qualifications from the reader. A power of conceptiveness descending to the minuteness of "the ten millionth of an inch," and a mathematical culture which can work with such "a high inverse power as the twelfth," and a familiarity with the purest elements of statics, dynamics, and physics, and science generally, are not too little to bring to its perusal. We confess to having been unable to follow to their far and ultimate results many of the matters contained in the work, and that it struck us, in reading the book, that the author seemed to founder (or if not, then we) on the idea that all that is capable of mathematical formulation is capable of mental realization (or conceivable), and is possible (and probable) in the outer world of phenomena and changes.

It would be vain for us to attempt to place before our readers, in the space at our disposal in this department, any abstract of this

attempt to supply "the true and sufficient key to the remaining secrets of inorganic nature." We prefer, therefore, rather to present for thoughtful perusal the following excerpt in proof of the worth of the book. It may be denominated

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HYPOTHESES.

"I. There are only two tests of the truth of any physical hypothesis [hypothesis explanatory of physical phenomena?],-its fitness to account for all the phenomena, and its simplicity.

"II. The simplest hypothesis which offers any hope of explaining the facts ought first to be tried; and more complex ones only when the simpler has been tried, and proved to be insufficient by careful examination.

"IIL The first step in the required proof of any hypothesis is when it can be shown to produce, by natural consequence, all, or nearly all, the same classes of phenomena, which a true theory is wanted to explain. Such an hypothesis may be called probable, and has a claim to fuller development.

"IV. An hypothesis is not only probable, but almost certainly true, when, on being developed, it yields a large variety of measurable results, which agree in quantity with the results of direct experiment.

"V. The simplest hypothesis is that which includes the smallest number of arbitrary postulates, such as distinct laws of force, constants of force, and constants of distance."

An ingenious, acute, and cultured mind, quite up to the highest level of physical research and philosophical induction, appears in the work, and the book cannot fail to be useful in bringing before keen thinkers some ideas worthy of attention. A profound and earnest spirit seems to reside in the author. We are glad to know that he is the examining chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Carlisle, that he has set himself to the discussion of The Difficulties of Belief in connection with the Creation and the Fall," and that he is the author of a work in which the "Essays and Reviews" have been subjected both to logical and theological criticism. He may not be a popular thinker, but he appears to us to be a very dependable one.

The Works of Thomas Reid, D.D. Edited by Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON, Bart. (SUPPLEMENTARY PART.) Edinburgh: MacLachlan and Stewart.

AFTER waiting seventeen years from the date of the original publication, and seven and a half years after the death of the editor, the publishers have now put before philosophical readers a so-called completion of Sir William Hamilton's edition of Reid's "Works," with notes and supplementary dissertations. The preface to the book, dated November, 1846-which, unlike all other books, ended in the middle of a sentence at p. 914,-said, "There remain the sequel of these Dissertations, the General Preface, and the Indices, all of which are either prepared, or their materials collected;" but this "Supplementary Part" appears with no publisher's statement or explanation of the cause of the original imperfection, and of the present mere heap of scraps being all that can be presented to 1864.

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readers as the completion of the undertaking on which the editor laid so much stress, and had employed so much laborious thought and care.

A postscript, bearing the initials of the Rev. Henry Longueville Mansel, B.D., LL.D., Waynflete, Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy, Oxford, informs us what he has done, and how he has done it; but that is not very satisfactory as a reason for the book being, as it is, a "cairn," and not a monument."

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The materials contained in this part may be described as-(1), 8 pages of a reprint of titles, index, &c.; (2), 75 pages of scraps, notes, jottings, and references, forming portions of the material out of which the Dissertations were to have been completed, including the postscript; (3), 44 pages of indices (pretty well, and fully done); (4), 23 pages of memoranda for preface; (5), 3 pages of addenda, &c.; giving 160 pages nominally, for 5s., in a wrapper, being 32 pages less in quantity than that given in the published bound volume, which, in the following words of the preface, leads us to anticipate more, viz.,-"The Notes and Dissertations have insensibly increased to a size and importance far beyond what was ever anticipated; but the book having always been destined primarily for academical use, the whole price will not exceed thirty shillings."

When the purchasers of the former portion of the work, after the patience of years, saw advertised "The Conclusion of the Supplementary Dissertations (with a Preface and copious Indices), compiled from the late Sir William Hamilton's Papers, by the Rev. H. L. Mansel, LL.D.," we think they were warranted in expecting something other than this "lame and impotent conclusion," and that some publisher's explanation should have accompanied the volume, if the editor could not commit himself to

one.

It is well known to all persons interested in philosophy, that Sir William Hamilton was stricken with paralysis before the volume was completed. It is as well known, however, that for the same publishers, while the former work was incomplete, the great logician edited his Discussions with extensive and valuable original appendices, &c., but a very bad index; and that he superintended also an edition-for different publishers-of the collected works of Dugald Stewart. It was not sheer disability, therefore, that hindered the completion of this opus magnum of the author, and the philosophical public was justified in expecting some advertisement regarding the actual occasion of Sir William's delay or dilatoriness. This has not been furnished.

In view of the proportionate deficiency of matter in this pamphlet, even when known, the publishers might have supplied a detailed biography of the editor, which, from the pen of some of his pupils or friends, would have had great interest. Or they might have re-appended to the work the "Prospectus of a New Analytic of Logical Forms," which was withdrawn from the latter editions, and

procured a synopsis of the controversies excited by the suggested system which that prospectus contained.

We have no hesitation in saying that a feeling of disappointment besets the purchaser of this Supplementary Part, and that the publishers seem to be the parties on whom the onus of explanation lies.

Of the philosophic worth of the materials contained in it there can only be one opinion-that of the Oxonian editor,-" A fragment, however imperfect, from the pen of a Pascal or a Hamilton has a value which would not belong to a more finished production of doubtful authorship." They contain glances of great thoughts, and glimpses of immense resources of learning. They are impressive fragments of an exquisitely logical mind, and of a metaphysical ingenuity rarely equalled in modern times. Professor Mansel seems to have done his work with almost filial care. are glad to have even the direction of the current of the thoughts of Sir William Hamilton indicated. We are grateful for the insight given us of the painstaking upbuilding of this system, but a gnawing and annoying feeling will work up in our hearts, that, had there been no "let, hindrance, and impediment" from external causes, Sir William Hamilton would not have left this favourite work, as we have called it, a cairn," and not a 'monument."

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We

Shakspere. A Critical Biography. By Samuel Neil, Author of "The Art of Reasoning," &c. London: Houlston and Wright. THE opportune reissue of this work of 130 8vo. pages, at a cost of one shilling, places within reach of every reader the possibility of becoming acquainted with all the known facts of Shakspere's life, carefully discriminated from those statements which are supposititious or inferential, by an author accustomed to test facts and reasonings with some precision. No Shaksperian book has been so unanimously received with approval by the critics. pleteness and uniqueness have been admitted on all hands. As one critic says, "Mr. Neil has studied with the devotedness of a Shaksperian, chastened by the habits of a stern logician." "He is one of the few exact thinkers produced in these wordy times."

Its com

A Familiar Epistle to Robert J. Walker; formerly of Pennsylvania, later of Mississippi, more recently of Washington, and last heard of in Mr. Coxwell's Balloon. From an Old Acquaintance. London: Saunders, Otley, and Co.

THIS pamphlet possesses some interest at the present time, as illustrating that fierce animosity which exists between the American partisans of the Northern and Southern States. Through many pages of mere personal abuse are scattered the opinions and arguments of an intelligent "Southerner."