obtained. Even the mistakes of our predecessors have not been altogether destitute of value. They have served as beacons to those who followed in the same path of enquiry. They have pointed out the dangerous quicksands and impassable quagmires of idle conjecture and visionary speculation; and directed future travellers to a safer route. The pioneers of science have the post of danger as well as of honour; and they are not unfrequently the victims of the primary assaults upon the strongholds of ignorance and error. But they fall not uselessly nor unrevenged. It is over their prostrate bodies that new and more successful attacks are made upon the ramparts of folly and delusion; and while their noble daring, and fearless intrepidity, are held up as examples to the admiring gaze of posterity, their opposers and persecutors are given over to an infamous notoriety; their names perpetuated by scorn and derision to the latest generations.

The philosophy of mind has always been viewed as deserving peculiar attention. Its province is to investigate the characteristics of our nobler part; our moral and intellectual nature. It undertakes to examine the properties and powers of that something within us, which we are conscious is the primum mobile of all our actions; to analyze the fluctuating processes of thought which give rise to volition; to classify the infinite variety of ideas which are perpetually passing through the restless mind. We cannot conceive of a inore interesting subject. Hence it has with great propriety been termed the "first philosophy," or the "science of sciences." And if one of our chief duties, as social beings, is to operate on our fellow immortals for their good, it is manifest, that in order to act intelligently, and with the best prospects of favourable results, it is necessary that we should be acquainted with the powers of our own mind for making, as well as the capacity of that of others for receiving, impressions. It is owing to ignorance of this important subject, that so many men who set themselves up as moral teachers, who are otherwise well qualified, do comparatively little good. They misconceive the character of those whom they address; and, consequently, their logic never reaches the understanding, nor their exhortations the heart. They attempt to convince by a display of ill-timed rhetoric, which they miscall eloquence; and to persuade by bitter sarcasm and violent invective. Instead of an exordium, adapted to soothe and soften, and gain the respectful attention of their audience, their remarks are vague and general; equally applicable to any other occasion. Instead of a peroration, fitted to evoke the kindliest feelings of our nature, and produce resolutions suitable to the time, the most offensive and repulsive thoughts are uttered, which immediately excite a determined resistance.

It is obvious, then, that no one is fitted to be an instructer of others, who is not familiarly acquainted with metaphysics, in the best sense of the term; and we are therefore disposed to listen with great indulgence to every plan whose object is to cast farther light upon this abstruse and important subject. A new mode of investigation was promulgated about the termination of the last century, which is now known by the name of phrenology, whose claims we propose examining in the present article.

Phrenology, according to Mr. George Combe, who is one of its chief authorities, "professes to be a system of philosophy of the human mind, and, as such, it ought to throw light on the primitive powers of feeling which incite us to action, and the capacities of thinking that guide our exertions, till we have obtained the object of our desires."

Now, we object, in limine, to this definition. There are but two modes of ascertaining the "primitive powers of feeling and capacities of thinking" of human beings; first, by an analysis of our own mental operations as we are acquainted with them through consciousness; and, secondly, by observing the actions. of others, and inferring the processes of thought and feeling which have been their producing cause. Both these modes were known long anterior to the invention of phrenology; and the only novelty which it presents, is its plan for tracing the connection between the brain, as the organ of thought and volition, and the mental manifestations. The study of the external form of the skull, with the view of discovering the shape, size, and functions of the different parts of the brain, and thence deriving indications respecting the dispositions, propensities, and intellectual powers of each individual, is the entire amount of this new system of philosophy. Dr. Gall thought he had discovered that boys remarkable for verbal memory could be distinguished from others by their prominent eyes. It had been long known that some individuals have a very retentive verbal memory; but if true, it is a new fact that they can be recognised by the appearance of their eyes. This projection of the eye-balls is said to be caused by the great development of the anterior part of the brain.

It may be here remarked, that for the successful cultivation of mental science, it does not appear indispensable that the connection between mind and body should be taken into account at all. We are acquainted with mind only through our own consciousness of its working, and the overt acts of those subjected to our observation. We can pursue the devious course of our own thoughts, and are fully aware whether they are for good or evil; and we can form an opinion relative to the thoughts of others, by noticing their doings; and decide

whether the mind, the impelling agent, is strong or weak, virtuous or vicious. But it is obvious, that in order to arrive at these conclusions, both in relation to ourselves and others, it is perfectly immaterial whether it is the brain, the heart, or the liver, which is employed by the thinking principle. We know that we think and will, and we are satisfied that those around us are similarly constituted; but in the enquiry respecting the operations of the thinking and willing power or substances, it is of no consequence by what bodily organ it manifests itself to us; unless, indeed, we are materialists, which entirely alters the case. If, however, phrenology can give us indubitable external marks by which we can judge of a man's moral principles and intellectual vigour, antecedent to a knowledge of his conduct and talents, acquired by observation; and we find that these marks are in accordance with our own consciousness, and admit of an invariably correct application to others, it will have extended the bounds of true philosophy, and laid mankind under great obligations, which we are bound in common gratitude to acknowledge. It will nevertheless be perceived, that it affords us no new information respecting the mind itself, nor its mode of action, nor even as to its cultivation. It simply pretends to trace a connection between certain mental faculties and particular parts of the brain; and we shall find as we proceed, that mental philosophy is surrounded by the same mystery as before its promulgation; and that we cannot even pursue a new mode of investigation.

That all our mental operations are performed through the instrumentality of a material organ, and that the brain is this organ, are propositions susceptible of such easy proof, that it is surprising any one in the smallest degree acquainted with physiology should refuse to admit them. Mr. Jeffrey, in his article, in the 88th number of the Edinburgh Review, has egregiously exposed himself, when he asserts "that there is not the smallest reason for supposing that the mind ever operates through the agency of any material organs, except in its perception of material objects, or in the spontaneous movements of the body which it inhabits."

A blow upon the head immediately destroys consciousness; and if blood-vessels are ruptured, although the person may recover from the first stunning effects of the injury, and regain his senses in a short time, as soon as the effusion of blood upon the surface, or within the substance of the brain, has reached a certain point, insensibility returns, and complete stupor and loss of consciousness reappear.

M. Richeraud, surgeon-in-chief of the Hospital of St. Louis, in Paris, relates the case of an old woman whose left parietal bone was destroyed by caries, in the greatest part of its extent, VOL. XX.-NO. 40.

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thus exposing a large portion of one side of the brain. He says, "I wiped off the sanious matter which covered the dura mater, and, at the same time, questioned the patient on her situation; as she felt no pain from the compression of the cerebral mass, I pressed down lightly the pledget of lint, and on a sudden the patient, who was answering my questions rationally, stopped in the midst of a sentence; but she went on breathing, and her pulse continued to beat; I withdrew the pledget; she said nothing. I asked her if she remembered my last question; she said not. Seeing that the experiment was without pain or danger, I repeated it three times, and thrice I suspended all feeling and all intellect."

The late Dr. Thomas Brown, of Edinburgh, in his review of phrenology, speaking of the Emperor of Austria, who had issued his mandate prohibiting the lectures of Dr. Gall, says, "His imperial majesty has had, of late, too many good opportunities of knowing that a man cannot contrive to march, and load, and fire, when he has left his head behind him; and the redoubtable lecturer has said little more. It may be wrong to allow a daring demonstrator of processes and sinuosities to assert that the mind remembers, imagines, and judges, only by the intervention of certain parts of the brain, but it is a piece of forbearance at least as dangerous, to allow a single cellar to be open in the taverns of Vienna, or memory, imagination, and judgment, to be all set to sleep by a few grains of a very common and simple drug."

That the mind is, in some inscrutable manner, connected with the brain, is thus made abundantly evident; but, that its operations are carried on by certain motions taking place in that organ, either as a whole, or in separate parts, as is asserted by Dr. Cullen, is an absurd hypothesis. It is impossible that we can have any evidence of motion, from the nature of its bony covering; and it is equally impossible, from the same cause, that motion can take place at all. The skull being full, and impervious to air, the pressure of the atmosphere upon the general surface of the body, acting upon the contents of the skull, through the fluids which pass and repass by the openings in the base of the cranium, will preserve its contents in a state of quiescence. So far from Cullen's assertion being true, it is a fact that especial care has been taken to prevent motion in the arrangement of its circulating system. The amount of our knowledge then is, that the brain is the material organ of mind. We know nothing of the quomodo.

It must be granted to the phrenologists, that it would seem to be easier to conceive that the mental functions, so numerous and diversified in their character, are performed by separate and distinct parts of the brain, than by the whole of that organ as

a unit. They also assert that the phenomena of dreaming, partial idiocy, and partial insanity, will equally admit of a plausible explanation. The division of the brain into two hemispheres precisely similar, or nearly so, and intimately associated by connecting bands of medullary matter, and the supposition of a plurality of organs, at first view, accounts very satisfactorily for the well-known fact that injuries, and even extensive suppuration, do not interrupt the mental functions. Mr. Combe observes, "it appears strange, if every part of the brain is concerned in every mental act, that all the processes of thought should be manifested with equal success, when a great part of the brain is injured or destroyed, as when its whole structure is sound and entire." But conjectural explanation and assertion are not satisfactory. Let us analyze the evidence.

The phrenologists think that, in dreaming; certain organs are asleep, and others awake and active. They infer, from the well-known fact that in dreams sometimes the reasoning faculty, at others the imagination, is active, that the faculty not employed is asleep; and as we can only know the faculties, according to them, through an organ or organs, therefore the brain must be divided into separate parts, having specific functions.

The first question to be answered here, is, in what respect do our mental operations, during sleep, differ from those observed when we are awake? The only difference is, that the will has not the same degree of influence over the faculties of the mind. The same laws of association are operative; and trains of ideas corresponding with the mental constitution of the dreamer, and with the previous impressions made upon his mind, succeed each other with greater or less rapidity. The ideas, it is true, are frequently incoherent, and their connection is not very apparent; but in so many instances the ordinary laws of suggestion can be seen to act, that we are warranted in supposing the wildest vagaries to have been excited in the usual manner. Aristotle remarked that a slight heat applied to the feet, during sleep, often produced in dreams the feeling of burning coals; and Dugald Stewart relates a similar fact of the late Dr. Gregory, of the University of Edinburgh, "who, having occasion, in consequence of indisposition, to apply a bottle of hot water to his feet when he went to bed, dreamed that he was making a journey to the top of Mount Etna, and that he found the heat of the ground almost insupportable." He had read Brydone's description of this mountain; and the heat to his feet revived the impression which it had made. "Another person, having a blister applied to his head, dreamed that he was scalped by a party of Indians." The ordinary laws of suggestion are here distinctly visible; but