NOTES. 637

Belper to his mother's house in Nottinghamshire and then, towards the end of January, to London, before the recovery took place. It was gradual. In the course of January he seemed to recognise his mother, who had nursed him all through, and later on external things began to affect him now and again in a more or less determinate way. About the end of the month, he had some experiences which he calls and remembers as dreams that evidently were his first definite apprehension of the people and things about him, overlaid with fantastic representation. From the beginning of February his perception became more and more clear and his language sensible, till in the second week he could, as he says (being an eager politician), have told the names of all the members for Derbyshire. But then it was found that he had lost all memory not only of the accident, but of the events of some days before. The accident was on a Monday, and he had perfect recollection of where he had been and what he had done up to the morning of the previous Monday ; from that time onwards he could recall nothing. The week had been an unusually busy one, full of incidents that he might w r ell remember; and, as it happened, he wrote a letter to his mother on the day before the accident, detailing the events of the pre- vious days. 1 have seen this letter, and it is possible from it and from other written records to make out the exact history of the week. He sold some cattle, and paid the money into his bank ; heard one afternoon a lecture given by a friend to an archaeological society, and entertained the members afterwards at his house ; attended a public concert ; presided at a meeting for University-extension ; wrote, printed and sent out an impor- tant circular to a number of Boards of Guardians ; took the chair at a public supper ; spoke at a great political demonstration ; received family intelligence that particularly interested him ; and finally, just before the accident, was engaged in the transaction of business of quite special importance to himself. Of all this and more, everything has clean vanished from him ; except only that he imagines he has some faintest reminiscence of a dark woman singing and of a number of people on a lawn but not till after reading his letter which mentions the one and suggests the other. About the cattle (not mentioned in the letter) he inquired in the second week of February, remembering that he had wished for some time to sell them, but having no suspicion of the actual sale some seven days before the accident. The facts could not be more exactly ascertained, and the present object is only to put them on record. I am unable, where now writing, to com- pare them with the particulars of other recorded cases, a number of which (according to M. Ribot) are to be found in the Dictionnaire ency doped! qne des Sciences medicales, art. " Amnesie," by J. Falret, besides one (similar in character to Prof. Bain's) in Carpenter's Mental Physiology, p. 450. I have heard privately of one case where, the unconsciousness being limited to a few minutes, the lapse of memory extended to only two or three minutes before the accident that caused it : which is further confirmatory, so far as it goes, of the notion that the length of the unconscious period may some- how determine the extent of the amnesia. On the other hand, there an- certainly cases where, upon recovery of consciousness, the circumstances ol' the accident do not fail to be remembered. EDITOR MILL'S DOCTRINE OF NATURAL KINDS. I am glad that Mr. Towry has stated this question in the last number of MIND, because I think his Note goes far to show that Classification is out of the province of Logic altogether. It is impossible, I believe, to