PREFACE. 



THE present volume has at least one merit : it is 

 strictly what its title-page announces it to be a 

 volume of essays and addresses, written and delivered 

 for the most part in the leisure-time of a busy pro- 

 fessional life. To collections of articles written at 

 various times, and it may be under varying moods 

 and phases of thought, there is usually brought the 

 objection that the interest of the papers is of passing 

 kind, whilst their relationship to each other may be 

 by no means stated or clear. To both objections the 

 author would fain offer a reply in the facts, firstly, 

 that if the essays themselves be of transient nature, 

 their subjects for the most part bid fair to find a place 

 in the " foremost files " for many days to come ; and 

 secondly, that a thread of connection binds the various 

 articles in a series, inasmuch as they are mainly de- 

 voted to an exposition of phases of living nature, 



