There are two classes of men who occupy themselves in observations on mental functions, frequently working widely apart from each other. These are, the metaphysicians, who investigate the phenomena of mind apart from anatomical or physiological facts, and the physiologists, who keep as exclusively to their own labours. Neither of these classes of men have as yet formed any philosophical system of the mental powers, and other functions of the brain; and it may be safely asserted that it is only by a combination of metaphysics and physiology that we can advance any considerable steps in our knowledge. The philosophical Reid, whose greatest disciple was Sir William Hamilton, stated many years ago, in his “Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind,” that they are “so many, so various, and so connected and complicated in most of their operations, that there never has been any division of them proposed which is not liable to considerable objections.” All the classifications made by metaphysicians differ materially from each other, and what was true in Reid's time is true now. We have a different race of metaphysicians from those who flourished years ago, different from Reid, Dugald Stewart, and Brown, but as yet we seem no nearer than we were to a systematic and comprehensive classification of mental faculties, or more properly, of the functions of the brain. I would not say that no progress has been made, for a vast mass of facts has been accumulated, and careful observations have been made, which will be available at some future period for a scientific and philosophical classification.

In supplement of my paper on “The Physiology of Mind in the Lower Animals,” and in anticipation of the correlative essay, which I hope by-and-bye to contribute to the “Journal of Mental Science,” on “The Pathology of Mind in the Lower Animals,” I am desirous—so long as the whole British public has a vivid memory of certain signal illustrations of the fact, or phenomena—to direct attention to the circumstance that the lower animals, in common with man, are subject to certain forms of Epidemic Mental Derangement. I allude more especially, at present, to that form thereof which is popularly known as Panic, and technically described as Timoria or Panphobia; an affection that is very properly included among “Epidemic Mental Diseases” in the short account given of them by Dr. Browne, ex-Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland, in “Chambers's Encyclopædia” (vol. iv, 1862, p. 92). The illustrations to which I would specially draw attention, in the case of the lower animals, are to be found, on the one hand, in the notorious Stampedesof Cavalry Horses, which characterized the well-known “autumn manóuvres” at Aldershot, about the end of August and beginning of September, 1871, as well as the later military manóuvres near the Russian capital (in September, 1871); and on the other hand, the Stampedes of other domestic and wild animals, during the more recent devastating conflagrations of Chicago, and of the prairies or forests of Michigan and Wisconsin, (in October, 1871.)

Considering the amount of attention which has lately been given to cerebro-spinal meningitis, and the obscurity which still hangs over the disease, I think the following case, which occurred in the Asylum at Carlisle, in April, 1867, worthy of record. It was a sporadic case, but its accessories and accompaniments invest it with some of the interest of those epidemics of the disease which have lately occurred:—

T. C. had been a patient in the asylum for five years; he had laboured under melancholia with periodic exacerbations and suicidal tendencies. On the whole he enjoyed very fair bodily heath, except when he became somewhat weak at times from refusal of food. But he generally got over this in a few days. He had most obstinate and severe psoriasis over shoulders, arms, hands, and legs.

In a certain section of the public mind the impression seems somehow to have taken root that in a well-regulated asylum no accident can ever occur without affording evidence of want of care and forethought on the part of the responsible officers.

An engagement prevented my reaching the meeting at the College of Physicians, on the third of August, in time to hear the President's address, and though I had something to say on the subjects contained therein, I had not the presumption to offer a criticism without having heard it, while the discussion which followed did not enable me to gather what had been put forward. By the kindness of Dr. Maudsley, however, I have been permitted to read his remarks, and have found them in every way worthy of the high encomiums passed upon them by more than one speaker; yet one or two observations occur to me. Dr. Maudsley is fond of paradoxes, and he startles us with one at the commencement. He tells us that he is convinced of the important part which hereditary predisposition plays in the causation of insanity—that he thinks no person goes mad, save from palpable physical causes, who does not show more or less plainly by his gait, manner, gestures, habits of thought, feeling and actions, that he is predestined to go mad. And yet when he is discussing the advice to be given as to the marriage of people sprung of insane ancestors, he sums up his opinion in these words—“I cannot think science yet has the right to forbid marriage to those in whom some tendency to insanity exists.”

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.”