1876-1877.] 247 



alluded to the fact that it had been admitted only by the casting 

 vote of the chairman of the Anthropological Section, Mr. Wallace, 

 on whose conduct while acting as president in the section he 

 strongly animadverted. The lecturer proceeded to discuss the 

 subject at length, remarking that he was not answerable for its 

 introduction among topics of a scientific institution; but those 

 who had thus forced it on public notice were so. Dr Macllwaine 

 proceeded to examine it in both its physical and psychological 

 aspect. Under the former head, he entered at considerable length 

 into an examination of the nervous system in both man and lower 

 tribes of animals. In the course of his remarks he pointed out 

 the remarkable coincidence between the different grades of ani- 

 mal life, and the divisions of the spinal cord and brain. There 

 are three degrees of life in man — the organic, the animal, properly 

 so called, and the rational. Dr. Macllwaine traced their connec- 

 tion, from the lowest to the highest, with the spinal cord, the 

 medulla oblongata, and the brain, with its appendages. In so 

 doing, the lecturer was assisted by an admirable diagram, copied 

 from the recent work of Dr. Ferner on the Functions of the Brain, 

 in which these divisions, and their progress from simple reflex 

 action of the nerves to the highest functions of the brain, were 

 clearly traced. The intimate connection between matter and 

 mind, and the independent existence of each, was fully explained, 

 the seat of the will and the higher mental powers being shown to 

 be located in the frontal lobes of the brain. Dr. Macllwaine 

 next proceeded to trace the history of the three subjects embraced 

 in Professor Barrett's paper — namely, mesmerism, clairvoyance, 

 and spiritualism — and showed by a historical sketch that the- one 

 insensibly, but invariably, led to the other. The cases of Dr. 

 Braid, of Manchester, and Dr. Gregory, of Edinburgh, were quoted 

 in proof that well-meaning, and even scientific, men might be led 

 into absurdities and dangerous errors by bestowing their attention 

 on comparatively worthless subjects. The lecturer proceeded to 

 examine at length the ground taken up by Professor Barrett in 



