have prevented his writing legibly, would be sufficient to explain his failure. If, while in full possession of all our senses, the expectation of failure quite commonly causes failure, how much more likely would this be to happen to a man in F.'s unfortunate abnormal condition. The sense of touch again would suffice to indicate the presence of water instead of ink in his pen when he was writing. I question whether the difference might not be recognised by any person of sensitive touch after a little practice; but certainly a blind man, whose sense of touch was abnormally developed, would recognise the difference, as we know from experiments which have indicated even greater delicacy of perception than would be required for this purpose. The experiment with superposed sheets of paper is more remarkable than any of the others, but certainly does not suggest that light makes any impression upon Sergeant F. It proves, in fact, so far as any experiment could prove such a point, that the sense of touch alone regulates the man's movements. Unconscious of any change (because, after the momentary surprise produced by the withdrawal of the paper, he still found he had paper to write on), he continued writing. He certainly did not in this case, as Dr. Mesnet suggests, see all things which are brought into relation with him by the sense of touch; for if he had, he would not have continued to write when he found the words already written no longer discernible. On the whole, it appears reasonable to conclude, as Professor Huxley does, that though F. may be conscious in his abnormal state, he may also be a mere automaton for the time being. The only circumstance which seems to oppose itself very markedly to the latter view is the letter-writing. Everything else that this man did was what he had already done prior to the accident. If it could be shown that the letters written in his abnormal state were transcripts, not merely _verbatim et literatim_, but exact in every point, of some which he had written before he was wounded, then a strong case would be made out for the automaton theory. Certainly, few instances have come under the experience of scientific men where a human being has so closely resembled a mere machine as this man appears to do in his abnormal condition. The moral nature of F. in his abnormal condition is for this reason a matter of less interest than it would be, did he show more of the semblance of conscious humanity. Still it is worthy of notice, that, whereas in his normal condition he is a perfectly honest man, in his abnormal state 'he is an inveterate thief, stealing and hiding away whatever he can lay hands on with much dexterity, and with an absolutely absurd indifference as to whether the property is his own or not.'