and
physiologists, who has not treated the belief in the separate existence
of powers of animal magnetism and spiritualism as wild speculations,
devoid of all foundation in the carefully-tested observation of facts.
It has been the habit of the votaries of these systems to assert that
scientific men have neglected or declined to investigate the phenomena
with attention and candour; but nothing can be farther from the truth.
From time to time men of eminence, and fully competent, by their
knowledge of biological phenomena, and their skill and accuracy in
conducting scientific investigation, have made the most patient and
careful examination of the evidence placed before them by the professed
believers and practitioners of so-called magnetic, phreno-magnetic,
electro-biological, and spiritualistic phenomena; and the result has
been uniformly the same in all cases when they were permitted to secure
conditions by which the reality of the phenomena, or the justice of
their interpretation, could be tested--viz., either that the experiments
signally failed to educe the results professed, or that the
experimenters were detected in the most shameless and determined
impostures." This sentence fell among the _savants_ like a bomb, and
"great was the fall thereof." Some have described it as an _ad captandum
vulgus_ use of words, and others have called it rash, and unduly
sceptical. It is proverbial that doctors disagree, and it would be
wonderful indeed if they were of one mind on the mysterious phenomena of
spiritualism.

It would be unpardonable were we to omit reference to Dr. Allen
Thomson's great exertions on behalf of the new University. No member of
the Senate was more zealous and hard-working in raising the necessary
funds for the splendid edifice that now rests on Gilmorehill, and
Professor Thomson was suitably selected to cut the first sod some four
years ago, when the work of erection was commenced.

Like his father, Dr. Allen Thomson has all his life been a consistent
Whig in politics, although in political movements, as such, he has never
taken any very prominent part.

In August last Dr. Thomson received from his _Alma Mater_ the degree of
LL.D.

REV. DR. JOHN CAIRD.

Of the many ornaments which the Established Church of Scotland has
produced, Dr. John Caird is one of the most brilliant as a preacher, as
a thinker, and as a rhetorician. During the comparatively short period
of his ministry, he secured