io8 2 he Influence of Language and Environment upon ifie 



elaborate discourse we have heard from Dr. MacCormac on the 

 connection of our mental culture with language, and the action 

 of language and environment on the nervous system. In the 

 prominence he gives to language, Dr. MacCormac has shown 

 the difference there is between human life and animal life. We 

 have not only the individual animal, and the individual man, 

 each of them having a nervous system wherein habits are 

 registered and character formed ; — but, over and above that, 

 man has the unique power of language, by means of which 

 habits and character are stored up from generation to generation. 

 We may approximately say that with the lower animals all 

 habits are congenital ; — their characters are formed at birth. 

 But with man it is very different ; the formation of man's 

 character goes on through the whole period of life ; and what 

 makes that possible is language, whereby the acquired mental 

 powers of one generation are stored up for the use of another. 



Mr. Workman. — An idea struck me during part of the 

 address of Dr. MacCormac. It seems curious when one tries to 

 learn to ride a bicycle, there is a very considerable effort ; I 

 think, perhaps, an intelligent effort required to maintain the 

 balance. When losing your balance you will require to take 

 some means to recover it and maintain it, and that intelligent 

 effort becomes exhausted in perhaps half-an-hour after you have 

 had a dozen of falls of different degrees of force ; and after the 

 half-hour's mental exertion, you will find it quite impossible to 

 continue the effort. After continuing this from day to day for 

 a longer or shorter time, the mental effort seems to disappear, 

 and after that there is left only the physical effort. Something 

 similar occurs in learning a musical instrument, or a new piece 

 of music. There is an effort to follow it out, and to acquire it 

 as a habit ; but when acquired, the mental effort ceases alto- 

 gether. I must express the pleasure it has given me to listen 

 to Dr. MacCormac's lecture. 



Professor Fitzgerald. — Before asking Dr. MacCormac to 

 reply to the remarks made by Mr. Murphy and Mr. Workman, 

 I desire to express our thanks to Mr. Wallace for the loan of 



