do is to show whether the last few pages of the Earth's biologic history, are or are not in harmony with this hypothesis--whether the existing Flora and Fauna can or can not be affiliated upon the Flora and Fauna of the most recent geologic times. FOOTNOTE: [Footnote 27: Sir Charles Lyell is no longer to be classed among Uniformitarians. With rare and admirable candour he has, since this was written, yielded to the arguments of Mr. Darwin.] BAIN ON THE EMOTIONS AND THE WILL. [_First published in_ The Medico-Chirurgical Review _for January,_ 1860.] After the controversy between the Neptunists and the Vulcanists had been long carried on without definite results, there came a reaction against all speculative geology. Reasoning without adequate data having led to nothing, inquirers went into the opposite extreme, and confining themselves wholly to collecting data, relinquished reasoning. The Geological Society of London was formed with the express object of accumulating evidence; for many years hypotheses were forbidden at its meetings: and only of late have attempts to organize the mass of observations into consistent theory been tolerated. This reaction and subsequent re-reaction, well illustrate the recent history of English thought in general. The time was when our countrymen speculated, certainly to as great an extent as any other people, on all those high questions which present themselves to the human intellect; and, indeed, a glance at the systems of philosophy that are or have been current on the Continent, suffices to show how much other nations owe to the discoveries of our ancestors. For a generation or two, however, these more abstract subjects have fallen into neglect; and, among those who plume themselves on being "practical," even into contempt. Partly, perhaps, a natural accompaniment of our rapid material growth, this intellectual phase has been in great measure due to the exhaustion of argument, and the necessity for better data. Not so much with a conscious recognition of the end to be subserved, as from an unconscious subordination to that rhythm traceable in social changes as in other things, an era of theorizing without observing, has been followed by an era of observing without theorizing. During this long-continued devotion to concrete science, an immense quantity of raw material for abstract science has been accumulated; and now there is obviously commencing a period in which this accumulated raw material will be organized into consistent theory. On all sides--equally in the inorganic sciences, in the science of life, and in the science of society--we may note the tendency to pass from the superficial and empirical to the more profound and rational.