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expect that they can keep their health as at home. The question of climate 
and horticulture is one that certainly deserves our best attention, and it 
would be well if we at home could only be made acquainted with 
the wonderful way in which, in some parts of the world, the patient labour 
devoted to the cultivation of fruits and flowers produces the most extra- 
ordinary results often from only a few square inches of superficial area. I 
may also draw attention to a very striking circumstance that may be noticed 
in the Fiji Islands, where, at a certain period of the year, shortly before 
sunrise, a peculiar slug makes its appearance and furnishes a singular con- 
firmation of what the lecturer tells us in paragraph 24 of his paper. In 
conclusion I would only say, in allusion to what we are told in paragraph 28, 
that I hope we shall not be obliged to realise what seems to be there antici- 
pated. I cannot but think that, in these days of increasing emigration, if 
people going abroad were only properly instructed as to the countries in 
which they are to live and the occupations they ought to follow, and the diet 
that is most suitable for them, we should thereby effect a great national good 
which would redound to the credit and wealth of the country. But at present, 
unfortunately, people go abroad ignorant alike of the climate they have to 
encounter, the food they ought to consume, and the occupations they will be 
compelled to pursue, actuated only by the mistaken impression that they 
will merely have to pick up gold from under their feet. 
Rev. Principal Rigg, D.D. — I feel that the subject of this paper is one upon 
which no one could be expected to speak with greater authority than Dr. 
Gordon, looking at the groundwork on which it is based and all it includes ; 
and yet it is one on which a good many persons might entertain some slight 
differences of opinion from Dr. Gordon and from each other. It is, 
indeed, a most interesting paper — a paper about almost everything, and 
one that is exceedingly suggestive and tempting, but about which one 
cannot say anything that is not more or less complimentary. We must 
beware, therefore, of the temptation to wander too far afield. I think 
Dr. Gordon did not touch on one point — though it is possible that I may 
not have caught it — that I have often thought worthy of more attention than 
is generally given to it, and that is the degree to which the pre-eminence of 
mind in any race may limit its variability. For instance, whether it is not 
merely physical weakness that makes a race amenable to all the influences of 
climate and so forth, whether the possession of superior mental force tends 
to preserve a race from being so entirely subject to those influences of 
climate, soil, and season by which it may be surrounded, as it otherwise 
would be. I rather think there is a good deal in this idea, and I believe 
that one reason for the extent to which modern European races, or, at any 
rate, some of them, are able to preserve their identity under the most adverse 
and discordant conditions of soil, climate, food, and other circumstances, is 
to be found in the development of mind and will in those races ; that this 
sets up a kind of barrier against the degree of subordination to the sur- 
rounding influences which otherwise would have a depressing effect on them 
and their descendants in the event of their becoming settlers. I do not 
