This summit is now, for the most part, covered by the Caffarelli palace, and by filthy cabins. If curious, the visitor is led up through a filthy cabin to have a view of what they call the Tarpeian rock; if this was perpendicular, and Capitoline Hill is a long ridge, or rather two hills joined together. The modern square or piazza of the Campidaglio occupies the neck of inferior height that joins them; it was of old called the Intermontium. The position of the ridge is from north-not intercepted by gardens and houses, east to south-west; the summit north of the Intermontium, was the site of the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, now that of the Franciscan convent and church of Ara Cali-the other and more extensive end of the ridge, was the arx, or citadel, containing, amongst other well-known spots, the Tarpeian rock, from whence malefactors were flung into the Campus Martius, and to which from the side of the Forum they mounted of old by an hundred steps. the fall would be quite sufficient for its old break-neck purpose, notwithstanding all the exclamations of travellers upon its nothingness. But this spot, however it may be on a rock, is certainly not near the identical place of the malefactor's leap, as if he fell from this, he would fall into the Velabrum, whereas we know that it was into the Campus they were thrown-most likely where now is the Ghetto, or Jew's quarter. ACCOUNT OF M. BICHAT'S THEORY OF LIFE. E VERY thing around living bodies, Life, according to Bichat, is the state of being produced by the possession and exercise of what he calls the vital properties; yet he does not always adhere with logical strictness to this definition, but rather uses the term sometimes to designate collectively the vital properties themselves, and this, perhaps, is its best and most convenient sense. His essential doctrine, how ever, is, that there is no one single individual presiding principle of vitality, which animates the body; but that it is a collection of matter gifted for a time with certain powers of action, combined into organs which are thus enabled to act; and that the result is a series of functions, the connected performance of which constitutes it a living thing. This is his view of life, considered in the most general and simple way. But in carrying the examination further, he points out two remarkable modifications of life, as viewed in different relations, one common both to vegetables and animals, the other peculiar to animals. The vegetable exists entirely within itself, and for itself, depending upon other substances only for the materials of nutrition; the animal, on the contrary, in addition to this internal life, has another, by which he connects himself with objects about him, maintains relations with them, and is bound to them by the ties of mutual dependence. This affords a principle, upon which to form a distinct classification of our functions. Those which we have in common with the vegetable, which are necessary merely to our individual bodily existence, are called the functions of organic life, because they are common to all organized matter. Those, on the other hand, which are peculiar to animals, which in them are superadded to the possession of the organic functions, are called the functions of animal life. Phisiologically speaking, then, we have two lives, the concurrence of which enables us to live, and move, and have our being; both equally necessary to the relations we maintain as human beings, but not equally necessary to the simple existence of a living thing. By our organic life, food proper for our nutrition is first submitted to the operation of digestion, is then thrown into the circulation, undergoes in the lungs the changes which respiration is intended to effect, is then distributed to the organs to be applied to their nutrition; from these, after a certain period, is taken away by absorption, thrown again into the circulation, and discharged at length from the system by means of the several exhalations and secretions. This is the life by which all the parts of the body are kept in a state of repair; it is the life of waste and supply; necessarily subservient to the performance of those functions, which are the distinguished characteristics of our nature, but not at all engaged in their performance itself. By our animal life, on the contrary, we become related to the world about us; the senses convey to us a knowledge of the existence of other things beside ourselves; a knowledge also of their qualities and their capacities for producing pleasure or pain; we feel, we reflect, we judge, we will, and react upon external things, by means of the organs of locomotion and voice according to the result of these mental operations, we become capable of communicating and receiving pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. In fact, by the organic life we merely exist negatively; by the animal, that existence becomes a blessing or a curse, a source of enjoyment or of suffering. It is not at all pretended that the idea of this division was entirely original with Bichat. Most physiologists have had some faint conception of it, and others have more distinctly recognized it under a somewhat different modification, and with a different title. But he has made it peculiarly his own by the ingenious and novel manner in which he has stated, explained, and illustrated it; the detailed application, which he has made of it, to the various phenomena of the living system; and the beautiful and almost poetical air which he has, by means of it, thrown around many of these phenomena. In the first place, as he teaches us, the two lives differ, in some important respects, as to the organs by which their functions are performed. Those of the animal life present a symmetry of external form, strongly contrasted with the irregularity, which is a prominent characteristic of those of organic life. In the animal life, every function is either performed by a pair of organs, perfectly similar in structure and size, situated one upon each side of the median dividing line of the body, or else by a single organ divided into two similar and perfectly symmetrical halves by that line. Thus the organs of sight and hearing, and of locomotion are double and similar; the nerves of the brain go off in corresponding pairs; the organs of smell and taste, and the brain, are situated with a perfect regard to this law. The organs of the organic life, on the contrary, present a picture totally different; they are irregularly formed, and irregularly arranged; the stomach is disposed without any regard to the median line, and one half of it bears no resemblance to the other; the same is true of the liver, the spleen, and all the organic viscera. The heart, it is true, is a double organ; but its parts are of unequal size and strength; the rest of the circulating system presents a thousand irregularities; and the lungs are dissimilar in the two sides of the thorax, in the division of their lobes, and the quantity of matter they contain. This symmetry of the form is accompanied by a corresponding harmony in the functions of the organs of the animal life. The exactness and perfection of vision depend upon the similarity of the impressions transmitted by the two eyes to the brain; if these impressions are dissimilar, vision will be imperfect in proportion; hence we shut one eye when the power of the other is increased by the interposition of a lens, and hence we squint when one eye is made weaker than the other. The same is true of all the senses, of the muscles of locomotion and voice, and of the brain itself; if there is between the corresponding organs, on the two sides, or the corresponding halves of the organs, any inequality or dissimilarity, that is, if there be any defect of symmetry, the consequence is an imperfection in their function. Upon this principle Bichat explains the difference between different individuals in their natural capacity for distinguishing accurately the harmony of sounds. A good ear for music, as we express ourselves in common language, is only the result of the possession of two symmetrical organs of hearing, which transmit to the brain similar impressions; a bad ear, on the contrary, is produced by any inequality in the organs, which transmit two unequal impressions. Thus, when one, either of our ears or eyes is deprived of its usual degree of sensibility, we can hear and see much better by making use of that alone which is uninjured, than by having recourse to both. The same remark is extended to the functions of smelling, tasting, and touching, and to the functions of the brain and muscles. But nothing like this is true of the organic life, to the regularity of whose operations, harmony and correspondence of action is not a necessary con dition.. The functions of the organic life are constantly going on; they admit of no interruption, no repose; whatever cause suspends, but for a moment, the respiration or the circulation, destroys life. They form a necessary and connected series, which must be always moving on in continued progression, from the beginning to the end of existence. But in those of the animal life the case is widely different. They have intervals of entire repose. The organs of this life are incapable of constant activity, they become fatigued by exercise, and require rest. This rest, with regard to any particular organ, is the sleep of that organ; and in proportion to the extent of the previous exercise, and the number of organs fatigued, the state of repose will be partial or general. Upon this principle Bichat founds his theory of sleep. General sleep is the combination of the sleep of particular organs. Sleep then is not any definite state, but is a more or less complete rest of the whole system in proportion to the number of 30 ATHENEUM VOL. 14. The organs which require repose. most perfect sleep is that where all the functions of animal life, the sensations, the perception, the imagination, the memory, the judgment, locomotion, and voice, are suspended; and the various forms of imperfect sleep exhibited in dreaming, somnambulism, &c. are all produced by the wakefulness of some particular organs. The two lives differ also in regard to habit; the animal being much under its control, the organic but slightly. In the animal life habit renders our feelings and sensations less intense, whilst it elevates and perfects the power of judging. The eye is no longer sensible of the presence of objects to which it has become familiarized, the ear takes no notice of sounds that are constantly repeated, the other senses become hardened against the operations of agents which have often excited them; but at the same time the capacity for forming an accurate judg ment with regard to their qualities has been growing more perfect. Thus, a piece of music gives at first a feeling of pleasure simply, and nothing more; if it be often repeated, this pleasure vanishes, but we become capable of estimating the merits of its arrangement and harmony. In the organic life it is not so; respiration, circulation, secretion, &c. are totally without the dominion of habit; and, although some of the functions of this life, most intimately connected with those of the animal, are in some measure under its influence, yet in a general way a freedom from this influence is a distinguishing characteristic of the organic life. Every thing relating to the understanding is the attribute of animal life; whilst the passions, on the contrary, belong to the organic life, have their seat in its organs, influence them when they are excited into action themselves, and are on the contrary influenced by the state of the organs. The relation which the passions have, so remarkably, with the animal life, is intermedi ate, and not direct; all the primary phænomena produced by their excitement are exhibited in the internal organs; the heart is violently excited in anger, more moderately in joy; fear, perfected, but they are not exercised; sadness, grief, produce an opposite ef- they are not accessible to the operafect. The lungs are equally affected, tion of the agents whose excitement is the respiration is quickened or imped- necessary to bring them into action, ed, a sense of oppression or suffocation and of course they remain in a state of is brought on, according to the nature profound repose, until the stimulus, and degree of the passion excited. In va- first of the air, and afterwards of food, rious emotions we experience peculiar light, and sounds, is applied to the ap sensations in the epigastrium, a sharp propriate organs. At birth, then, a pain, a sense of fulness or of sinking; great change takes place in the physioin other cases, more decided effects are logical state of man. His animal life produced, a spasmodic vomiting, a co- is first brought into existence, and his pious secretion from the liver or the organic life becomes more fully devemucous membrane of the intestines, loped and more complicated, in order producing a diarrhoea. All the natu- to accommodate itself to the increasral gestures by which we attempt to ed demands which this change necessaexpress the intellectual and moral affec- rily brings upon it. But, from this motions, are so many proofs of the cor- ment, there is no further alteration or rectness of these views. If we wish to improvement in the functions of the indicate any of the phænomena of the organic life. They are as perfect in intellect, relating, for instance, to me- the infant as in the adult; they are not mory, to perception, or to judgment, susceptible of education. But in those we carry the hand spontaneously to of the animal life every thing depends the head; but, if we would express upon the education they receive; at love, joy, sadness, hatred, &c. we in- first feeble, imperfect, indistinct, they voluntarily place it upon the breast, or gradually become developed, and the the stomach. We say a strong head, direction given to this development, a well-organized head, to express the and the character which they ultiperfection of understanding; a good mately possess, depend in a great heart, or a feeling heart, to express mo- measure upon the influence exercisral perfection. Many of the phæno-ed upon them by extrinsic circumstanmena of disease indicate the same relations between the organic viscera and our moral affections. In the diseases of some organs, the mind is cheerful and happy, taking always a favourable view of things, and this even when the disease lies at the very root of existence; and, on the contrary, when some other organs are affected, it is invariably gloomy and apprehensive, anticipating the most fearful results, and even in trivial complaints expecting the most fatal consequences. The two lives differ also in the mode and epoch of their origin. The organic is in activity from the very first period of conception; the animal enters into exercise only at birth, when external objects offer to the new individual means of connexion and relation. In the foetal state, the economy is solely occupied in the formation and nutrition of the organs; this is the preparative stage of existence. The organs, which are to perform the functions of the animal life, are created and ces. Differing thus in their origin and in their mode of development, the two lives differ also in the mode of their termination in death, when this takes place naturally, that is, at the extremity of old age. The animal life is becoming gradually extinguished, before the organic has begun to fail. One after another its functions cease to be performed. The eye becomes obscured, it ceases to feel or to transmit the impression of light. The ear becomes insensible to the impulse of sound. The skin, shrivelled, hardened, deprived in part of its vessels, is incapable of but an obscure and indistinct sensation; the parts dependent upon it, the hair and beard, lose their vitality, grow white, and fall off. The intellectual functions follow in the train of the sensations, the perception is blunted, the memory fails, the judgment becomes infantile; and at the same time the muscles under the influence of the brain, viz. those of locomotion and voice, partake of the same decrepitude. to itself, or at least properties modified The old man moves with pain and difficulty, and speaks with a thick and trembling voice. Seated near the fire which warms him, he passes his days concentrated within himself; estranged from every thing around him, deprived of desires, of passions, of sensations, speaking little, because induced by no motive to break silence, happy in the feeling that he still exists, when almost every other one has already quitted him.' In a certain sense then the animal life dies first, and leaves the organic still going on in the performance of its functions; this separation is more or less complete, and continues for a greater or less length of time, in different cases. The old man may continue to breathe and digest, for some time after he has to all intents and purposes ceased to think and to feel; he continues to exist as a vegetable when he no longer lives as an animal. Death, however, at length seizes upon the organic life. Gradually, and step by step, the vital forces desert the different organs; digestion, secretion, &c. languish, the circulation and respiration are successively impeded, and finally stop. In considering the vital properties, as in all his inquiries concerning life, Bichat had constant regard to his grand division into the two lives; and he recognizes in the functions of each life, the exhibition of properties peculiar by the nature and relations of that life to whose functions they are subservient. In the organic life, the organs have in the first place a sort of sensibility or perception, by which they become acquainted with the presence and qualities of the substances applied to them; this is the organic sensibility: they have then a property by which they re-act upon these substances, and excite in them motion; this is the organic contractility. It has two modifications. 1. Where the contraction is insensible, as in the exhalants, capillaries, secreting vessels. 2. Where it is sensible, as in the heart, the stomach, the intestines; and these are called respectively, the insensible, and the sensible, organic contractility. In the organs of the animal life, there is also a sensibility, by which they are not only made capable of receiving the impression of an object and its qualities, but of transmitting that impression to the common censorium; and a contractility, which not only renders a part capable of contracting, but is in the exercise of its power under the entire control and direction of the brain. These properties are called the animal sensibility and the animal contractility. With Bichat the properties of life were all in all. The phænomena of the system, whether in health or disease, were all ascribed to their influence and operation. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE WORKS OF WASHINGTON IRVING. R. MURRAY has, this season, published lustrations of books, thus combining the beauties of Art with the attractions of Literature in a way which has not of late years been very prevalent. Among the causes of the disunion, we may mention the great expense of such embellishments, and still more the delays which the procrastination of Artists too frequently occasioned. The latter evil induced booksellers to do with out their assistance altogether, or to employ labours of an inferior style: thus crudities or lithography came to be substituted for finish and copperplate; and the refinements of the burin yielded to the facilities of scraping wood, or stone. The Engravings before us are of a high character, and renew our acquaintance with the truly admirable in Art. A fine frontispiece portrait of the best writer in duced, does credit to the pencil of G. S. Newton, and the needle of E. Scriven. It is followed by ten designs of Leslie, and engraved by C. Heath, C. Rolls, J. Romney, W. and E. Finden, and A. W. Warren, from various parts of the Sketch Book and Knickerbocker's History, all of which are honourable to the state of our National School. Rip Van Winkle is an exceedingly clever and characteristic subject-bis dog exquisite-and the engraving by Rolls doing justice to the conception of the painter. The legend of the Sleepy Hollow is equally humourous, and still better engraved by the same hand. Wouter Van Twiller deciding the lawsuit (the only piece drawn by W. Ailston) is inclined to the caricatura, and there are some slight flaws in our co |