An Essay in the Journal of Mental Science for October, 1875, entitled, “Can Unconscious Cerebration be Proved ?” by Dr. Ireland, Superintendent of the Institution for the Education of Imbeciles at Larbert, ends thus:—“In any case the theory of ‘unconscious cerebration’ derives no support from physiology. It is a child of the old metaphysics, to be brought forward and repelled by the study and analysis of mental operations, cognisable by internal examination.”

An opportunity having been afforded me, through the kindness of Mr. A. H. Garrod, of examining the brain of a fine specimen of the Chacma Baboon (cynocephalus porcarius) from the Zoological Society's Gardens, London, I purpose, in the following pages, to record, so far as I may be able, the minute structure of the convolutions in the various parts of the cerebral hemispheres. It will be my endeavour in this inquiry to study the nerve elements of the cortex step by step, and layer by layer, and thus gradually to unfold its structure; to analyse and compare the varying appearances in different situations; and finally, collecting and arranging the facts thus elicited, to place them side by side with those derived from a study of corresponding parts in the human organ, and ascertain, if possible, the relations which exist between them.

In studying, during the last five years, the phenomena of Mind in the Lower Animals, I have encountered as great difficulty in drawing any definite or definable Psychical Line of Demarcation between Plants and the Lowest Animals as between the Higher Animals and Man. In other words, it appears to me that certain attributes of mind, as it occurs in Man, are common to Plants. The only alterative is the omission from our conceptions and definitions of Mind of certain phenomena common to plants with all classes of animals, including man—those, namely, that do not involve what we distinctively call consciousness. But the difficulties of such an elimination seem to me insuperable.

When I saw in the last number of this journal that Dr Crichton Browne had essayed the task of criticising the system of classification of insanity devised by the late Dr. Skae, I knew the fact could not but be gratifying to Skae's friends. To have any system or theory subjected to independent criticism is very good for it. Then I could not forget that some of those who had advocated most earnestly Skae's classification had been pupils, assistants, and friends of his during life; and I was conscious, from my own experience, how much anyone in that position was inclined to look partially on his work. I felt sure that Dr. Browne, while seeing this, would not, in those circumstances, consider it a mortal sin, and would pass it gently and generously by. Indeed, I was a little afraid that he himself, as an old pupil of Skae, might be tempted to soften the stern tone befitting a critic, by something of the same pardonable feeling. He has striven to resist this impulse, and with much success. Another reason why I rejoiced that the merits of this system should be canvassed was, that I thought with, perhaps, natural partiality, that everyone must necessarily see something good in it; and that the fact of its being looked closely into by a competent and unbiased mind would produce a better understanding of Skae's point of view, and a more thorough sifting of the tares from the wheat. Not that such criticism had been wanting either at home or abroad. The system had been before the world for twelve years. The authors of all the standard books on psychological medicine and papers on classification published since that time had discussed its merits; and it did seem as if it were growing in favour. Maudsley, in each successive edition, had seemed to make more and more account of it; Blandford had assigned it a good place amongst other systems; Hack Tuke had given high praise to all the “somato-etiological” systems of looking at and classifying mental disease, and to Skae's in particular; Mitchell had declared it had taken hold of the medical mind; Thompson Dickson had said there was some good in it; and finally, that Nestor of alienists, whom Dr. Browne fitly describes as “the most illustrious representative of English medical psychology now living,” Bucknill, had given it the truest flattery of all by incorporating its nomenclature in the orders, genera, and species of that classification which is the final result of his vast experience, the generalised sum of all his thinking. All these, and more, had found it had faults; but they all speak of it and its author with much respect. Then it is a mere matter of fact that its terminology had become a part—and an essential part—of recent writings on nervous and mental disease.

The following case occurred at the Glasgow Circuit Court, in September, 1875, and seems well worthy of record in the “Journal of Mental Science.” It is especially important, as showing that the Crown, disregarding the formal definitions of the Judges, has practically recognised that insanity, like other diseases, varies greatly in degree, that it may modify without destroying legal responsibility, and that it may mitigate without annulling the penalty due to crime.

George H——, a Quarter master-Sergeant in the 38th Regiment, was admitted into Grove Hall Asylum on the 12th of June, 1874. It was stated that the attack had then been of between one and two months' duration; that it was supposed to be aggravated, if not induced, by tropical climate; and that he had become epileptic. Previously to his admission he had been in a state of active maniacal excitement, incoherent, noisy, destructive, violent, and the subject of delusions of a grandiose character.

Are marriages of consanguinity always followed by a tendency to degeneration in the offspring ? or are they only so when contracted by unhealthy individuals ? These questions, important as they are, are yet unanswered; it is, therefore, well that all cases bearing on the subject should be investigated and published.