It is further desirable to remark that the statements in this Essay respecting the forms of Native American crania need rectification. On this point, I refer the reader who is interested in the subject to my paper "On the Form of the Cranium among the Patagonians and the Fuegians" published in the _Journal of Anatomy and Physiology_ for 1868. If the problem discussed in my address to the British Association in 1870 has not yet received its solution, it is not because the champions of Abiogenesis have been idle, or wanting in confidence. But every new assertion on their side has been met by a counter assertion; and though the public may have been led to believe that so much noise must indicate rapid progress, one way or the other, an impartial critic will admit, with sorrow, that the question has been "marking time" rather than marching. In mere sound, these two processes are not so very different. CONTENTS. I. ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. (An Address delivered to the Members of the Midland Institute, on the 9th of October, 1871, and subsequently published in the _Fortnightly Review_) II. THE SCHOOL BOARDS: WHAT THEY CAN DO, AND WHAT THEY MAY DO. (The _Contemporary Review_, 1870) III. ON MEDICAL EDUCATION. (An Address to the Students of the Faculty of Medicine in University College, London, 1870) IV. YEAST. (The _Contemporary Review_, 1871) V. ON THE FORMATION OF COAL. (A Lecture delivered before the Members of the Bradford Philosophical Institution, and subsequently published in the _Contemporary Review_) VI. ON CORAL AND CORAL REEFS. (_Good Words_, 1870) VII. ON THE METHODS AND RESULTS OF ETHNOLOGY. (The _Fortnightly Review_, 1865) VIII. ON SOME FIXED POINTS IN BRITISH ETHNOLOGY. (The _Contemporary Review_, 1871) IX. PALAEONTOLOGY AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION. (The Presidential Address to the Geological Society, 1870) X. MR. DARWIN'S CRITICS. (The _Contemporary Review_, 1871) XI. THE GENEALOGY OF ANIMALS. (A Review of Haeckel's "Natürliche Schöpfungs-Geschichte." The _Academy_, 1869) XII. BISHOP BERKELEY ON THE METAPHYSICS OF SENSATION. _(Macmillan's Magazine_, 1871) CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. I. ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM. (AN ADDRESS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE MIDLAND INSTITUTE, OCTOBER 9TH, 1871.) To me, and, as I trust, to the great majority of those whom I address, the great attempt to educate the people of England which has just been set afoot, is one of the most satisfactory and hopeful events in our modern history. But it is impossible, even if it were desirable, to shut our eyes to the fact, that there is a minority, not inconsiderable in numbers, nor deficient in supporters of weight and authority, in whose judgment all this legislation is a step in the wrong direction, false in principle, and consequently sure to produce evil in practice.