Improvement in the treatment of the insane and the knowledge of mental diseases has progressed rapidly in late years, owing to the efforts and studies of many workers, among whom Drs. Bucknill, Tuke, Hood, Lockhart Robinson, and Forbes Winslow are conspicuous. The record of their work would lead us into too wide a field. But the life-work of one of the sons-in-law of Dr. Conolly, HENRY MAUDSLEY, is of a character which for good or ill has exerted, and is exerting, a powerful influence on younger minds. We come here into a region of work influenced by the philosophy of Darwin and Herbert Spencer, applied to the physiology and pathology of mind, and to the relationship between body and mind. The time is not yet come for an impartial estimate of the striking works which Dr. Maudsley has brought forth in fertile succession, in addition to his extensive labours as one of the editors of the _Journal of Mental Science_. But it is certain that every one who would place himself in a position to estimate the strength of the so-called “materialistic” school, whether he be a metaphysician, a doctor, or a person of average culture, must read Dr. Maudsley’s works. They are written fearlessly, and for the most part with admirable lucidity, displaying a knowledge of literature and philosophy not often met with, combined with great practical experience in mental phenomena. Henry Maudsley was born near Giggleswick, in Yorkshire, on February 5, 1835. After receiving his early education at Giggleswick School, he proceeded to University College, London, and took the M.B. degree at London University in 1856, with the distinction of University Scholar in Medicine. He proceeded to the M.D. degree in 1857. During the years 1859-1862 he was Resident Physician to the Manchester Royal Lunatic Hospital. Returning later to London he became for a time Professor of Medical Jurisprudence at his old college, and later Consulting Physician to the West London Hospital. In an article on “The Theory of Vitality,” which Dr. Maudsley published in the _British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review_ in 1863 (republished in “Body and Mind,” 1870), he showed remarkable power for a young man of twenty-eight. His conclusion was that the conscious mind of man blends in unity of development with the unconscious life of nature. He looked for the harmonisation of the idealism of Plato and the realism of Bacon as the expressions of the same truths.