62 The Scottish Naturalist. 



mentioned that his strongest affection was shown to Mr. M'C., 

 for this reason no doubt, that Mr. M'C. one day, when out 

 walking near Hanwell, had to carry " Mum " home a good 

 distance, as the dog had a severe Epileptic fit, and Mr. 

 M'C. thought it would have died. The dog's gratitude to Mr. 

 M'C. when he got home was something wonderful, and from 

 that time his affection for Mr. M'C. was extreme, more so than 

 for any one else." 



"V. I may mention that when I had "Mum" at Wells 

 (Somersetshire), he had his first Epileptic fit, which I witnessed, 

 in the garden there. He suddenly fell down, was convulsed, 

 then rallied a little, got up, reeled and staggered, and ran round, 

 describing a circle. I waited, he got better, and I did not re- 

 quire to carry him home. There was an interval of seven or 

 eight years between the first and second Epileptic fit. When 

 first seized with the fit, I thought he had been poisoned, and 

 that he had taken some poisonous article in the garden." 



" VI. " Mum " was far more intelligent than a Microcephalic 

 Idiot-girl of seventeen I had (as a patient) at Hanwell, whose 

 brain was remarkably small, and weighed only 13 ozs." 



The following short disquisition was sent me some years ago 

 by a busy Surgeon, harassed with the cares and worries of a 

 large practice, who yet, like the late Sir Benjamin Brodie, finds 

 time for, and takes obvious pleasure in, " Psychological En- 

 quiries * " of the most abstruse kind. 



PSYCHOLOGICAL NOTES. 



" Where are we to draw the boundary line between man and 

 the brute? Nowhere that we can see, short of the point at 

 which the creature becomes endowed with the high gift of 

 knowing God, of feeling his accountability to Him, of desiring 

 communion with Him. This gift may be latent in low, degraded 

 races, and the endowment may appear in action in many and 

 varied forms ; but with improvable reason it is ever potentially 

 present. By improvable reason we mean the faculty of com- 

 prehending abstract ideas. Writers have held that Will dis- 

 tinguishes man from the brute, when this is shown in selection 

 with approval or cofiscience. Does that quality distinguish man 

 from the lower animals ? We train a dog by chastisement and 



* This is the title of a couple of well-known volumes by the late Sir 

 Benjamin C. Brodie, the first London surgeon of his day ; which volumes 

 had reached a third edition in 1862. 



