The following observations are mainly the result of the author's experience during twenty years in the Somerset. County Asylum; many of them have appeared from time to time in his annual reports of that institution.

“In all departments of investigation, it is right to commence with the study of that which is most common, simple, and regular: and thence to proceed to inquiries respecting that which is unusual and irregular.”

Anyone who has attempted to work up statistical facts from a Pathological Record must have felt how much time and trouble were wasted in wading through case after case which had no connection whatever with the subject in hand.

It was a feature peculiar to the late Sir W. Hamilton's character to avoid writing on any subject, with a view to publicity, until he had mastered everything extant which had previously been written upon it. It is said that when Hamilton, on its first appearance, read Whately's Rhetoric, he accused the author of plagiarism. A mutual friend suggested that Whately most probably had never even heard of the sources supposed to have been laid under contribution. Then why, asked Hamilton, did he presume to write on the subject at all? Now it is just because Hamilton himself was so punctilious in this respect that his researches are of great value to the psychologist. The investigator who masters these, and builds on them, may feel confident that he does not break with the past, but that his conclusions legitimately spring, as all such conclusions should do, positively, out of the capital of knowledge which our forefathers have amassed, and negatively, out of the errors they have committed.

In every large asylum there are probably convalescents of two distinct classes. 1, Convalescents about to be dismissed nearly, or quite, recovered; and 2, Convalescents who, under favourable circumstances, would be discharged, but who are considerately permitted to remain, because they neither have friends able or willing to receive them—nor are themselves equal to the effort of procuring suitable employment—nor, again, are they, in many instances, persons who from their antecedents or habits can suitably be transferred to the Workhouse.

American Journal of Insanity, vol. xxv. July, 1868, to April, 1869.

October, 1868. No. 11.—“ Insanity and its Relations to Medicine by John Gray, M.D., &c. “History and Philosophy of Medical Jurisprudence,” by John Ordronaux, Professor of Medical Jurisprudence in Columbia College. “Last Wills-Unsound Mind and Memory.” “A Lecture on Gastric Epilepsy,” by G. E. Paget, M.D. “Case of Compound Fracture of the Skull, with Recovery,” by Edwin Hutchinson, M.D. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL: English Psychological Literature. Sltmma1'y: Obituary; “ Epileptiform Convulsions, following a Blow on the Head;” “Case of Epilepsy connected with Vesical Calculus, cured by Lithotomy.”., Thinking, Doing, Feeling.”