By this slower process, the subjects might have been taken up successively, and might have been more thoroughly investigated; but it has become apparent to every body interested in anatomical inquiries, that a systematic attempt has been made, not only to anticipate the future subjects, but to assume whatever merit may belong to these discussions. By thus snatching at parts, without comprehending the whole system, a wrong notion has been conveyed about it; matters of fact, and conclusions, drawn from diligent inquiry, are mixed up with absurd fancies, and a false colour is given to the whole. The obvious remedy is the publication of the system; but the Author regrets the necessity of doing this, as it was his wish not to place it before the public in an imperfect state. The reader must see that many of the subjects are capable of farther illustration, and that the system may be strengthened by future inquiry. Even during the present season, in delivering his lectures to his class, the Author has found new facts and suggestions offering themselves, which he could have wished had been incorporated in the present volume. Soho Square, AN EXPOSITION OF THE NATURAL SYSTEM OF THE NERVES OF THE HUMAN BODY. A DESIRE having been very generally expressed to see a connected view of the new system of the nerves, the following account has been drawn up for this purpose. Something of this kind has indeed become necessary in addition to the papers published by me in the Philosophical Transactions for although those dissertations explain some of the remarkable facts brought out in the course of the investigation, they B do not convey an idea of the system as I have conceived it; nor display its chief excellence, which is its simplicity, and the order which by means of it, has been introduced into the demonstration of the nerves. My conceptions of this matter arose by inference from the anatomical structure; so that the few experiments which have been made, were directed only to the verification of the fundamental principles on which the system is founded. In France, where an attempt has been made to deprive me of the originality of these discoveries, experiments without number and without mercy have been made on living animals; not under the direction of anatomical knowledge, or the guidance of just induction, but conducted with cruelty and indifference, in hope to catch at some of the accidental facts of a |