10 FEBRUARY 1872, Page 3

The Lancet retaliates on our article of last week in

a very characteristic manner by attributing our view to the " sad excuse of a disordered mind." That may, perhaps, be a joke ; but for anything its very weak articles on this subject contain, such a belief would be quite as reasonable as the beliefs therein justified. Indeed, we feel very little doubt that Dr. Forbes Winslow and the writer of the editorial in the Lancet would cheerfully give a joint certificate of the present editor's unsoundness of mind, or of that of any other person who did not seem to them to have a reasonable confidence in the judgments of the medical profession on the subject of insanity, and would give it on grounds quite as good (or bad) as those on which they suppose that Mr. Watson was subject to "paroxysmal madness." Scientific conjecture, however unfounded, appears to this class of minds in relation to this subject, to mean the same thing as proof.