in his exertions, and will doubtless effect farther improvements. It must be gratifying to every friend of humanity, to observe the rapid stride so generally made throughout the kingdom in the path of improvement in the method of treating the insane.

STIRLING. About nine or ten months ago, Mr Aitken delivered, in the Guild-hall here, several lectures on Phrenology; and fourteen young men, conceiving that its doctrines were not without truth and importance, engaged him to enter into a private conversation with them regarding it. Mr Aitken advised the formation of a society, and eight of these individuals agreed to the proposal. Two months ago, the number of members had increased to fourteen. "We usually meet once a week," says one of them; "and a number of phrenological works having been purchased, (among others, a few numbers of the Phrenological Journal, which is regularly received as it issues from the press), portions of these are read and discussed, and occasionally some of the members prepare and read essays, embodying in them as much as their knowledge can impart of phrenological principles. None of us having any practical knowledge of physiology or anatomy, we do not presume to press ourselves upon the notice of the public as a Phrenological Society."

IRELAND. The Dublin Journal of Medical and Chemical Science, for July 1835 (No. xxi. p. 456), contains the following passage:-"Ireland, we say it with pride, is not a country for charlatans.-In proof of the assertion, that the Irish, in medical matters at least, are by no means credulous, it may be observed, that animal magnetism, which had so many admirers on the Continent and in England, and was beaten out of the French capital but by the united forces of the most distinguished Parisian literati, was at once rejected by our countrymen; even Phrenology, a mild and feminine science, scarcely found in Ireland where to lay her head; and Homoiopathy quickly turned her steps from our shores, not, however, before one voice had been lifted up in her favour; but that voice, although speaking many languages, polyglott beyond the gift of tongues, and the fruitful parent of false derivations innumerable, soon died away unheeded." The assertion, that Phrenology has scarcely found in Ireland where to lay her head, is not remarkably consistent with the facts, that Dr Marsh, Mr Richard Carmichael, and Dr Stokes, who rank among the most eminent medical men in Dublin, are its avowed defenders; and that the names of Dr Spurzheim and Mr Combe have been enrolled in the list of honorary members of the Royal Irish Academy.

AMERICA. From the fifth number of the Annals of Phrenology, we observe that a keen controversy has taken place between the Boston phrenologists and a writer in the Christian Examiner published there. We shall revert to the subject in our next. A monthly periodical, entitled "Phrenological Magazine and New York Literary Review," has been commenced at Utica, New York. According to the Annals, the first number" is an octavo pamphlet of 48 pages; and though we have not read all the articles, of which a good proportion are original and editorial, we have read enough to see that the editor holds the pen of a ready writer, and fears not to speak his mind upon the science, and upon those who, without the requisite knowledge or powers, except the power of face,'-go about lecturing, and examining heads' at so much a piece. The contents of this number are as follows:'The true Philosophy-Outlines of Phrenology-Phrenology and the Ladies -Itinerant Phrenologists Opinions of Tiedemann and Arnold-Sketch of Dr Gall—Oneida Phrenological Society-Notices.'' Mention is made of a prospectus of another Phrenological Journal, to be published semi-monthly by a number of scientific gentlemen at Poughkeepsie, New York. The conductors of the Annals complain loudly of the number of phrenological quacks who are abroad in the United States.

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Dr W. P. ALISON, Professor of the Institutes of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, has lately published, in the Cyclopædia of Practical Medi

cine, part xxiv., a very instructive « History of Medicine in the present Century." We extract the following passage, in which he alludes to the progress recently made in elucidating the functions of the nervous system :

"The next important addition to the science of medicine has been furnished by the labours of those physiologists who have done so much, within the last twenty years, to determine the different purposes which are served by the different parts of the nervous system. The general result of these inquiries may be thus stated: that the very different offices to which the nervous system has long been known to minister in different parts of the body, are not determined, as was formerly suspected, by the various organization of the parts, but by the various endowments of different portions of the nervous matter itself, in relation to those mental acts of which they are the seat and the instrument.

"The dissections, experiments, and clinical observations of Sir Charles Bell, Mr Shaw, and Mr Mayo, in this country, and of Magendie, Serres, Desmoulins, and Flourens, in France, and of Rolando and Bellingeri in Italy, are the most important of those by which it has been ascertained, that the conditions which are necessary to all the sensations, and to the excitement of all muscular motions by mental acts, are confined to those nerves, and to those portions of the spinal cord, and its immediate prolongations within the cranium, to which we now give, without difficulty, the names of sensitive and motor respectively. We can specify those portions of this cerebro-spinal axis, on which each of the sensations peculiarly depends; we can point out the use of parts within the cranium, in immediate connexion with the cerebrospinal axis, by which voluntary or instinctive motion in different directions is determined; we can form some idea of the parts of the nervous system, and of the peculiarities of structure, by which the influence of mental acts over the involuntary motions, and other organic functions, is maintained; and we can shew that the brain and cerebellum are not essential to the perform ance of the functions of the spinal cord and nerves that they are neither required for sensation, nor for those instinctive actions which are most intimately linked with sensations, but are superimposed on those organs with the intention of combining sensation and instinctive action with the higher attributes of mind. These parts of the nervous system furnish the conditions, not of sense or motion, but of intellect, of desires, and moral feelings; they are required, not in order that sensations may be felt, but that they may be remembered, and availed of for useful purposes,-not in order that volitions may act as stimuli on muscles, but that they may be so excited, and so succeed one another, as to produce regular and useful voluntary actions, under the guidance of desires, and of judgment and experience, as distinguished from blind instinct.

"So far the different endowments of the different parts of the nervous system may be held to have been determined by observation and experiment; and, if we decline to enter farther into the speculations of phrenologists (which have attracted so much attention of late years), as to the connexion of the individual parts of the brain with the different intellectual powers, or with the exercise of these powers on particular objects of thought, it is not because we regard the general principle of those speculations as unphilosophical, but simply because they are founded on a kind of observation which is open to various sources of fallacy, and derive little or no support either from experiments on animals or pathological observations on the human body, and appear therefore to be built on insufficient evidence."-Pp. 77, 78. We are pleased to find Phrenology recognised by Professor Alison as a philosophical pursuit. It would, however, have been satisfactory had his limits allowed him to specify the "various sources of fallacy" to which he conceives the observations whereon it is founded are open. That Phrenology derives little direct support from experiments on animals is true, only be cause the evidence afforded by such experiments is faulty in principle-an opinion in which the great body of general physiologists concur. It is quite impossible to mutilate one organ without disturbing the functions of others with which it is connected; and for this and various other cogent reasons

(see Gall sur les Fonctions du Cerveau, iii. 156–9), phrenologists have not resorted to experiments made upon living animals. But such experiments, when made by others, have on no occasion afforded evidence hostile to Phrenology. As to Professor Alison's allegation that our doctrines derive little or no support from " pathological observations on the human body," we respectfully give it a positive denial. Had Dr A. been acquainted with the contents of Dr Gall's work above referred to, and with the numerous pathological cases published in our own pages, and in the Transactions of the Phrenological Society, he would probably have held a different opinion on this subject.

ITINERANT PHRENOLOGISTS.-A paragraph among the notices in our last Number, contains the following words, in reference to an itinerant lecturer whom we did not name:-" One of them, we are told, has published in the newspapers a narrative of a visit said to have been made by him to a prison in a distant town, and of his success in divining the dispositions and talents of a criminal there confined; and this narrative is suspected to be a fabrication. Of this matter, and the individuals alluded to, we have personally no means of judging," &c. Before publishing the paragraph alluded to, we gave this lecturer an opportunity of satisfying us that the suspicion was ill-founded; but we did not hear from him till several days after the publication of our last Number, when he sent us the following letter, addressed to him by Dr White of Newcastle, and which we are happy to insert: "DEAR SIR,—I can certainly testify as to having been present at the examination of the head of the book-stealer in the gaol of this town; and my impression is, that at the time I believed that you had intimated the strong peculiarities of his character. I believed also that you had a competent knowledge of the system you professed to teach, in as far as I was competent to form a judgment on the question. Understanding that such circumstances have been doubted, I have no hesitation in making this statement; and am, Sir, yours truly, D. B. WHITE, M. D.-Portland Place, 3d June."

THE EDUCATIONAL MAGAZINE. This is a London monthly periodical, which was commenced in January last. It is published at a very low price, and is conducted in a liberal spirit-admission being given to articles in defence of conflicting opinions, when discussion is likely to be of service. The seventh number contains a long paper on "Phrenology and Education," written with considerable ability, though not free from one or two rather startling propositions-for example, that education is the cause of the difference between the infantile state and that of manhood. The writer considers Phrenology as "essential to the foundation of, and carrying on, a proper system of education." In the same number is an article on the effect of physical influence on the mind," wherein it is shewn that the brain is the organ of the mental faculties, and that whatever affects the former unavoidably affects the latter also. The article is, however, in several respects unsatisfactory. Thus an absurd distinction is drawn between the dreaming and waking states, with regard to the activity of the immaterial mind. During our waking hours, according to the writer, it is the mind which thinks; but "dreaming is to be ascribed to a condition of the material brain, not of the immaterial principle."- "The immaterial principle," says he, " is not necessarily engaged in the phenomena of dreaming; the brain is not its servant during sleep, because by that very state it is unfitted for intellectual operations, and when it does act, it is without the control of a presiding mind; and therefore the morbid state of dreaming, instead of the physiological process of correct thinking, is produced. If we assumed the contrary, we must then concede that the immaterial spirit possesses very limited powers of intelligence, and that these require to be aided by its material connexions_results which are falsified by daily experience, and which, if allowed, would leave us at once in the dark night of materialism." This reasoning is so futile, as to be altogether unworthy of comment; a remark not less applicable to a portion of the following sentence in No. V. p. 314 :-" From phrenological re

search much information connected with the relations between matter and mind has been obtained; and it may be said with [of] this science, as Lord Bacon said of knowledge generally, that a little of it inclineth man's mind to atheism, but that a copious draft of it brings him back again to Providence and Deity." The remark in italics is somewhat inappropriately directed against Mr Combe's work on the Constitution of Man, which is literally, from be- . ginning to end, an exposition of the Creator's attributes.

MANCHESTER.-Letter from Mr Rawson, secretary of the Manchester Phrenological Society: 20th August 1835. We shall feel obliged if you can insert a notice in the Journal, to the effect that we have held our meetings as usual since our last communication, except during the summer. Several interesting papers have been read; and, at the meeting on 7th July, Mr George Combe, Dr Andrew Combe, Mr James Simpson, Mr Robert Cox, and Dr Elliotson, were unanimously elected honorary members of our body.'

Our valued collaborateur Mr Simpson was lately summoned to give evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on National Education in Ireland; and so instructive and satisfactory was his examination found by the Committee, that it was continued for seven days, during four hours of each day. This circumstance is exceedingly gratifying to us; seeing that, by means of the Committee's Report, in which Mr Simpson's evidence will be printed, the views entertained by phrenologists on the means of improving education, will be widely diffused among those who are interested in that vitally important subject. Mr Simpson's opinions with respect to both principles and details were minutely inquired into; and we have heard that Mr Wyse, and the other members of the committee, were much impressed by the clearness, precision, and consistency of his views.

Mr Combe has just published a third edition (stereotyped) of his work on the Constitution of Man, considerably enlarged and improved. It is printed with a closer type than the second edition, and is sold at four shillings. A fourth edition, printed in large double-columned pages, with the same type as that of Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, will be published in a few days; and in order to bring the book within the reach of the poorest class of operatives, the price of this edition will probably be so low as eighteen pence.

We are happy to be able to announce to our friends, that the circulation of the Phrenological Journal has considerably increased during the past year. Phrenology is attracting more and more every day the attention of the public.

The indulgence of correspondents is respectfully solicited, our pages being so full that many articles are, as usual, unavoidably postponed. The communications of Mr W. A. F. Browne, Mr Gibson, Mr Holm, and Mr William Hancock jun. have been received; also that of Mr Edmondson on Weight, which last, we fear, is hardly perspicuous enough for publication. On the subject of the Penny Cyclopædia we refer Mr Hancock to the 8th volume of this Journal, p. 286, where he will observe that in 1833 the editors declined to receive an article on Phrenology offered by Sir George Mackenzie.-There is much sound thinking in J. D. W.'s esteemed communication; but we despair of finding room for an article containing ideas so little recommended by novelty. We are gratified by his information that our Journal has been instrumental in bringing peace to a troubled mind.-Mrs Loudon's Philanthropic Economy has been received.

EDINBURGH, 1st September 1835.

THE

PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL.

No. XLVI.

ARTICLE I.

THOUGHTS ON PHYSICAL EDUCATION : being a Discourse deli vered to a Convention of Teachers in Lexington, Kentucky, on the 6th and 7th November 1833, by CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D. Boston (U.S.): Marsh, Capen, and Lyon. 1834.

THIS most valuable little volume should be in the possession, and in the thoughts and practice, not only of every teacher of youth, but of every parent who desires health of mind and body to bless his children. Dr Caldwell, we have often said, is one of the best informed and most practical phrenologists of the age, but he did not address his discourse to phrenologists; for to them he would have offered little that had not been already published by himself and other phrenological writers. Addressed as it was to an unphrenological audience, to whom it was new, it contains the most concise and practical view of physical education, on phrenological principles, which could be presented; recommended by that spirit and vivacity, that logical clearness and eloquence, which characterize Dr Caldwell's writings. As a system of the principles of practical education, the book is complete. A brief description of it is all that seems to us to be necessary in this Journal.

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Dr Caldwell sets out with a powerful appeal in favour of an improved education" as the only means of " the advancement of the people in intelligence and virtue," and urges its "necessity" even for the safety of the American people.

In explaining what he means by the term education, the lecturer stated to his audience that he must speak phrenologically. The education of mind and body must have relation to some philosophy of man. But," says Dr C., " of all the systems I

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