524 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [jan. 31 , 
have described, and gives a drawing which he considers demonstrates 
that my view is wrong, and that the old idea of the fibres passing 
from cortex to cortex is correct* He asserts that this drawing 
is not a diagrammatic scheme, but an actual representation of a 
preparation in his possession. He further states that he has made 
oblique sections as I had directed, but still has been unable to see 
what I described. 
When I read this criticism, I felt certain of two things: first, 
that Dr Beevor had not examined preparations cut in the oblique 
direction I have recommended; and, secondly, that the drawing above 
referred to was not an actual representation of the preparation from 
which it was said to have been taken. I was convinced that what he 
had endeavoured to depict consisted in reality of the fibres passing 
into the corpus callosum, and that he had entirely failed to see, as 
had happened to others, those which were issuing from it , owing to 
his having cut the brain transversely instead of obliquely. In 
justice to Dr Beevor’s statement, however, I resolved to see his 
preparations for myself, and to hear his explanation of them by 
word of mouth. I am constantly being reminded by so-called 
critics that they are still sceptical of my statements, and the most 
ardent are those who have never taken the trouble to examine my 
work, nor really to work at the subject for themselves. The matter 
is not one which can be settled in an offhand manner, but requires 
the most careful scrutiny. If it had been easy to demonstrate what 
I have recorded, it would long ago have been done. 
My anticipations in regard to the basis on which Dr Beevor’s 
criticism was founded were more than realised. I emphatically state 
that the drawing of the corpus callosum given in his critique in 
Brain (vol. ix.) is very far from being an actual representation of 
the preparation from which it was taken. The continuity of the 
fibres is not such as he depicts, for immediately at the outer margin 
of the corpus callosum there is a break in the preparation caused 
by a large number of fibres having been cut off abruptly, which 
is not represented in the drawing. The fibres so cut across consti- 
tute those I have described as turning downwards. They have 
been severed, because they do not lie in the same plane as those 
* Ferrier, I find, has somewhat hastily reiterated this statement in the 
latest edition of his work on the Functions of the Brain. 
