PREFACE. 



THE Twenty-Sixth Volume of the Journal of the Transac- 

 tions of the Victoria Institute is now issued. It is a 

 record of the various important questions taken up in 

 papers by competent authors, carefully investigated, and 

 impartially discussed at the Meetings "by those who have 

 studied the subjects considered. The papers and discussions 

 in this volume are upon the following subjects : — " On the 

 Route of the Exodus," by Dr. Edouard Naville, who for a 

 long series of years has taken a leading place among Egyptian 

 explorers, and to whom the world owes the discovery of 

 Pithom, Bubastis, and other ancient sites ; the remarks of the 

 Right Rev. Bishop Staley, D.D., Sir John Coode, K.C.M.G. 

 (the late), Sir Theodore Ford, and others are appended. 

 " From Reflex Action to Volition," by Dr. Alex Hill, Master 

 of Downing College, Cambridge, in writing on which he, as 

 an anatomist, describes the structural relations of the several 

 parts of the central nervous system, the brain, " the machine 

 with which the mind works " ; combats the views advanced 

 by Weismann and his school — that evolution takes advantage 

 of "chance" differences between animals — and believes in 



