mind as he is now. The study of the mental functions of the brain, without the previous consciousness of the mental facts to be explained, can not go on. This is so obvious that it strikes me it should occur to our physiological friends when they attempt to address us on physiological grounds.

The meeting was then adjourned.

REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING PAPER.

BY THE REV. R. WATTS, D.D., LL.D.

I am much interested in this paper, but have no time for communicating any special remarks upon it. I cannot, as a theist, accept the position that mind cannot act on matter directly. If it cannot act on it directly, it cannot act on it at all, for there can be no mediatory agency which is not either mind or matter. If mind has created matter, it is idle to allege that mind cannot act on its own offspring. To deny that mind cannot act on matter is all one, therefore, with the denial of the creation of matter. Besides, on philosophical principles, I must reject the doctrine that mind cannot put forth energy. The ultimate court of appeal on all such questions is consciousness, and the testimony of consciousness is, that our ego, is a fountain of energy potent to the excitation of energy in the material organism we inhabit, and, through it, in the material of our environment. I hold by the Edwardian doctrine of the will, the fundamental principle of which is that the law of causality holds sway within the realm of mind.

THE AUTHOR'S REPLY.

The Honorary Secretary has kindly sent me the report of the discussion on my paper, and Prof. Watts's observations.

Prof. Watts has altogether mistaken my meaning. I have written the paper in order to remove the difficulty which the dynamical philosophy has raised in the way of believing that mind can act on matter. I believe in such action as firmly as he does, though on different grounds. But when he maintains, as a dictum of consciousness from which there is no appeal, that the will "is a fountain of energy, potent to the excitation of energy in the

material organism," I reply that this proves no more than does the dictum of consciousness that the earth stands still. Astronomical science proves that the earth moves, and dynamical science proves that the will can only transform the energy due to the oxidation of the food. To deny this is to deny the conservation of energy. My purpose has been to show that the will may be able to direct energy, and thereby to be an agent in the universe of matter, without having any power to originate energy. If this is true, there is room in the physical universe for moral freedom; though on any theory moral freedom can exist only within narrow limits. Prof. Watts says, quoting apparently from Edwards, that "the law of causation holds sway within the realm of mind." If this only means that the relation of cause and effect exists within the realm of mind, it appears to me not only true, but the fundamental datum of all reasoning on the subject; but my purpose is to show that this does not prove the doctrines of necessarianism and automatism.

Mr. Lane-Fox, if I understand him, thinks any attempt to treat subjects belonging to the moral sciences from the physical point of view is almost necessarily more or less nonsensical." If my reasoning is sound it must prove itself, but I will remark that the tendency of all modern science is to obliterate the supposed boundaries of the several sciences. Dynamics is now but an application of mathematics, and physics of dynamics; and we cannot tell what possibilities of knowledge would be shut out if we were to acquiesce in the dictum that the physical and the mental sciences can throw no light on each other. It would be a hopeless state of things if, on such a question as this of moral freedom, the two parties were simply to face each other, the one saying "Consciousness affirms it, and we care not what may be said against it ;" and the other, "Science disproves it, and we care not what may be said in its favour." Surely it is better to seek for some way of harmonising. An able writer once contemptuously called me a harmoniser, but I am proud of the name.

Professor Odell questions my opinion, that mind has been evolved out of sensation. I think that, as a matter of fact, this is almost as certain as that the organism has been developed out of a minute mass of protoplasm; but I have written my work on Habit and Intelligence to prove that there is an element in all intelligence which is not due to any unintelligent materials or forces.

I agree with almost all that Dr. Gregory has said. I do not wish

A PHYSICAL THEORY OF MORAL FREEDOM.

251

to be thought insensible to the spiritual side of truth, because my immédiate subject does not lead to it. I have, in this paper, only endeavoured to reply to the argument of materialism against moral freedom, with arguments of a kind to which materialists are open. My statement of the arguments of a spiritual philosophy in favour of moral freedom, is to be found in my work on The Scientific Bases of Faith.

ORDINARY MEETING, JUNE 18, 1888.

THE PRESIDENT, PROFESSOR G. G. STOKES, D.C.L., P.R.S., IN THE CHAIR.

The Minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed, and the following Elections were announced :—

LIFE MEMBERS.-Francis Sharp Powell, Esq., M.P.; Rev. G. F. Whidborne, M.A., Camb., F.G.S., London.

MEMBERS.-General Sir A. Cotton, R.E., K.C.S.I., Dorking; Professor W. G. Anderson, F.S.S. and G., United States; T. M. Harvey, Esq., London; Rev. C. B. Hutchinson, M.A., London; Rev. T. E. Lindsay, B.A., F.C.S., F.G.S., F.R.G.S., London; Rev. Principal Parker, D.D., Manchester; Carr Stephen, Esq., M.A., E.I.C.S., London.

ASSOCIATES.-Sir M. Monier-Williams, K.C.I.E., Oxford; Professor A. Agassiz, United States; R. Ashby, Esq., London; T. Brown, Esq., London; The Reverends A. L. Blackford, D.D., A.B., A.M., Brazil; the Hon. C. F. Cross, M.A., Camb., Birkenhead; H. Dawson, M.A., Luton; J. O. Fellowes, London; C. J. Goodhart, M.A., Kent; J. H. Honeyburne, M.A., M.R.A.S., Liverpool; J. Kerr, Glasgow ; S. T. Lowrie, A.M., D.D., United States; H. Simon, London; H. A. C. Tomkins, Bath; W. T. Warburton, M.A., Camb., Liverpool; E. N. Willson, A.K.C., London; J. Howard, Esq., M.P., London; R. H. Lamborne, Esq., Ph. D., United States; J. F. Mellor, Esq., J.P., S. Australia; J. R. Sturgis, Esq., M.A., Oxon, London; Principal A. Vinter, M.A., LL.M., Leeds; Miss G. Lea, Kent; Miss A. Voile, London.

HON. CORRESPONDING MEMBERS.-Colonel A. R. Clarke, R.E., F.R.S., Redhill; Hon. J. M. Gregory, Ex-President, Illinois University, United States; Professor T. McK. Hughes, F.G.S., Cambridge; Rev. R. Watts, D.D., Belfast.

Also the presentation of the following works to the Library --
Long Ago," by Rev. E. F. Burr, D.D.

From the Author.

The presentation of the Quarterly Journals of the Royal Society, the Royal Colonial Institute, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Institution, the Royal United Service Institution, the Geological Society, and many other Societies with which the Victoria Institute exchanges its Transactions having been duly acknowledged ;—

The following paper was then read by the author :

THE BOTANICAL GEOGRAPHY OF SYRIA AND PALESTINE.-By Rev. GEORGE E. POST, M.D., Professor of Surgery and Diseases of the Eye and Ear, in the Syrian Protestant College at Beirût, Syria.

THE

HE natural boundary of Syria to the north is the range of Akherdagh, with its continuous range Kanlydagh to the east. These ranges rise like a gigantic yellow wall, trending west-south-west, from the thirty-eighth degree of north latitude towards the Gulf of Iskanderûn. The eastern peak, above Kerhân, rises 8,400 ft. above the sea, while the western, above Marash, is only 6,400 ft. high. But, although this range shuts out the view of the mountain systems of Asia Minor from the side of the Syrian table-land, the waters of its southern as well as its northern slope flow into the Pyramus (the Jihân).

A plain two hours (six miles) in breadth separates the western end of Akherdagh from the northern end of Amanus. This range is no longer known by a single name, as in ancient times, but each peak, with its surrounding spurs, bears a