114 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



quisition. These three functions, how- 

 ever much they are mingled in our 

 mental operations, are yet totally dis- 

 tinct properties, and each the ground- 

 work of a different superstructure. As 

 an ultimate analysis of the mental 

 powers, their number cannot be in- 

 creased or diminished; fewer would 

 not explain the facts, more are unne- 

 cessary. They are the intellect, the 

 whole intellect, and nothing but the in- 

 tellect." 



This resolution of the intellect into 

 ultimate discriminations of likenesses 

 and differences among things recog- 

 nized, remembered, and thought about, 

 and, as a consequence, the growth or 

 development of the intellect as a suc- 

 cessive combination and recompound- 

 ing of these relations of discrimina- 

 tion, is an immense step forward in the 

 progress of scientific psychology, be- 

 cause it first brings into close corre- 

 spondence the two orders of activity. 

 Instead of merely wondering at the 

 brain as an inexplicable mass of muci- 

 lage, we now regard it as an organism 

 built up with exquisite delicacy out of 

 thousands of millions of cells and fibres, 

 with myriads of intimate connections, 

 all guarded most securely and put into 

 multiplied and marvelous relations with 

 the external universe. It is impossible 

 here to go into the details of the sub- 

 ject, and we have aimed only to state 

 the present attitude and tendency of 

 psychological inquiry, which is briefly 

 this : Our feelings and volitions, apti- 

 tudes and acquisitions, are elements of 

 mind having their corporeal side which 

 it is both indispensable and possible 

 to understand — great progress having 

 been recently made in the investiga- 

 tion. Much in the relations of the 

 cerebral structures to mental action is 

 still profoundly obscure, but much is 

 also already known which is of the 

 highest service for useful guidance. 

 Metaphysics has been hitherto pro- 

 verbially barren, because it. has in- 

 sisted upon considering mind as an 



isolated abstraction ; while modern 

 psychology, by regarding the whole 

 nature as a unity, promises, on the 

 other hand, to be eminently produc- 

 tive of practical results. 



MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



The British Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science commenced its 

 forty-third session September 17th, in 

 the town of Bradford. Dr. Carpenter 

 resigned the presidency, and, as the 

 health of Dr. J. P. Joule, his successor- 

 elect, did not allow him to assume the 

 duties of the chair, it was taken by 

 Prof. "Williamson, the eminent English 

 chemist, who devoted his inaugural ad- 

 dress to the discussion of his own de- 

 partment of science. After a hand- 

 some tribute to the memory of Liebig, 

 Prof. "Williamson entered into an ex- 

 position of the present conditions of 

 chemical science, the directions of its 

 greatest activity, the present state of 

 chemical theory, and the general rela- 

 tions of scientific education to the ad- 

 vancement of knowledge. The whole 

 paper is able, but it did not arrive in 

 time for publication in the present 

 number of the Monthly. 



The chairman of the biological sec- 

 tion was Prof. Allman, the distin- 

 guished zoologist of the Edinburgh 

 University, and his address, upon tak- 

 ing the chair, seems to us a very able 

 and instructive scientific discussion. 

 But what is the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science about, in 

 putting at the head of its biological 

 branch a man who favors Darwinian 

 notions, and is consequently a sham 

 scientist ? Do they not know that from 

 the Yankee Vatican has gone forth 

 a bull which excommunicates them 

 and their seed to the end of time ? In 

 his lively address before the Free Eeli- 

 gious Association, in Boston, last May, 

 Colonel Higginson apologized for the 

 extent of theological disagreement by 



