able for their truth and accuracy, and no scene could more forcibly represent than this the inconceivable extent to which our ancestors lived in the atmosphere of Combativeness, De. structiveness, and Self-esteem. Revenge was then what the love of gain is now, the universal and engrossing passion, and religion was a system of gross superstition. The idea that an ordeal of battle was an appeal to God was natural to rude minds. It being granted that God directs every event,

. and that he is omniscient and just, it appears to follow as an inevitable consequence, that in battle he will protect the innocent and send discomfiture on the guilty ; nevertheless we know by experience, that this is not always the result. It is only by admitting that the Creator governs the world by general laws, that we escape from the dilemma. He has bestowed on man intellect and moral sentiments, and designed that he should take them as his guides, not only in pursuing happiness, but in seeking redress of wrongs; and these faculties never at any period acknowledge battles and bloodshed as means of attaining justice and truth. When our ancestors, therefore, appealed to Heaven by judicial combat, they laboured under a complete misconception of the principles on which the Creator governs the world; and this moral and intellectual error coinciding in them with great ferocity of mind, carried the most heart-rending evils in its train; in the words of the king, “ In Scotland, the first words stam“ mered by an infant, and the last uttered by a dying gray“ beard, were, Combat-blood-revenge.'”

The character of Henbane Dwining can be fully comprehended only by a Phrenologist: he is a compound of Destructiveness, Acquisitiveness, Secretiveness, Cautiousness, Firmness, and Intellect, with the least possible portion of Benevolence, Veneration, and Conscientiousness. The characters of Henry and Dwining are excellent contrasts for those who wish to know the effects of Combativeness and Destructiveness combined, as in Henry, with great Benevolence; and of pure Destructiveness, with little Combativeness combined, as

in Dwining, with much deficiency in Benevolence. Henry is hot-tempered, pugnacious, and bold, but generous and kind; and Dwining is cold, cruel, cautious; he is one “ to whose evil “nature his patron's distress was delicious nourishment.” He laughs with exquisite pleasure when his patient and victim is writhing in agony, and delights in inflicting pain. Until Phrenology with its primitive faculty of Destructiveness appeared, no system of mental philosophy in existence could explain the nature of such a being.

The author has been less successful with Connachar. He has represented him as a coward ; or, in phrenological language, with Cautiousness far surpassing Combativeness and Firmness. But his conduct and appearance are not uniformly consistent with these qualities. It is well established, that a man's outward bearing, or the stamp of character impressed by nature on his whole figure, bis gait, attitudes, look, and tones of voice, take their rise from the predominating organs in his brain, or faculties of his mind. Now, Connachar is described as rash, fiery, and vindictive. This would harmonize with Combativeness, Destructiveness, and Selfesteem large, and Cautiousness small; but then this combination will not suit a coward. Large Destructiveness and large Cautiousness may co-exist in a coward, and he to the weak may be cruel, overbearing, and tyrannical; but Connachar attacked Henry with a knife to murder him in the glover's shop in Perth, although he knew Henry to be far more than his equal, and detection and punishment certain. This was the act of large Combativeness, Destructiveness, and Selfesteem, with deficient Cautiousness, and was impossible to a coward. Again, Connachar is represented at the funeralfeast as bold, manly, and noble in his aspect and bearing, and as looking like a brave man, even at the combat on the North Inch of Perth. Such looks, attitudes, and gestures, however, are not assumable by one in whom Combativeness and Firmness are deficient, and Cautiousness overwhelming in magnitude. The creeping timid look, step, and move

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ment, are ingrained by nature in such a person, and he can no more lay them aside, than the leopard can change its spots.

Connachar is utterly disgraced by his cowardice ; and, at last, in desperation, leaps over a precipice, and is dashed to pieces. This act has been thought inconsistent with his character of poltron ; but we think it more reconcileable to it than some of the preceding attributes. Suppose Combative. ness and Firmness to have been very deficient, but Destructiveness, Self-esteem, Love of Approbation, and Cautious, ness to have been very large, the individual might, from the weakness of the first two faculties, have been morally incapable of fighting, or of coolly facing danger; while, at the same time, he might have been dreadfully alive to disgrace, and having become frantic under the excessive fear of this calamity, he might consistently have been impelled, by the strength of these feelings and Destructiveness, to cast himself into the gulf. Suicide is committed more frequently from fear than is generally supposed; the fear of want, or fear of disgrace, lead to self-destruction ; and if fear of calamity to

2 be encountered by living be excessive, less active courage is in proportion requisite to meet death.

After surveying society, as represented in these volumes, we turn with a pleasing consciousness of improvement to its aspect in our own day. The lawless wildness of the lower propensities is tamed; men do not now thirst for blood; they are pleased with other honours than murders and robberies committed on their countrymen. But even the present generation is not entirely beyond the region of the propensities ; Acquisitiveness has taken the lead in place of Combativeness and Destructiveness, while Self-esteem and Love of Approbation, nearly as active as before, seek gratification in wealth, pomp, and outward circumstance. We are authorised to hope, that the summit of ascent is not yet reached, and that higher faculties will one day take the lead. Sir Walter Scott would do an invaluable service to his country, if he

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would draw a fair portrait of its present inhabitants, nothing extenuating and setting down naught in malice, but representing fairly the predominating motives which actuate them in their habitual conduct; and we should be most happy to do our part, by analyzing the motives, and referring them to their places in the scale of faculties.

The work before us shows its author's powers to be neither exhausted nor impaired; and much as we hear that he dislikes Phrenology, we doubt if any but Phrenologists possess knowledge of human nature sufficient to appreciate fully the accuracy of observation which he displays.

ARTICLE XIII.

PHRENOLOGICAL NOTICE OF MR WARDROPE'S CASE OF

RESTORATION TO SIGHT IN A LADY OF 46 YEARS OF AGE.

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In a paper published in the 4th volume of the Phrenological Journal on the functions of the sense of sight, considered in its relation to ideas of Form, Colour, Magnitude, and Distance, I gave an abstract of the phrenological philosophy of vision, for the purpose of afterwards applying it to the analysis of a case of restoration to sight, in a lady who bad been blind from infancy up to her 46th year, and who, from her general intelligence, had been able to give a better account of her daily progress, than almost any other person whose bistory has been recorded. But as that paper was not read to the Society, and may not, therefore, be known to many of the members, I trust I shall be excused for a little repetition.

The case to which I allude occurred to Mr Wardrope of London, and was published by him in the Philosophical Transactions of 1826, and it took my attention, both from its intrinsic importance, and from its having given rise to a good deal of philosophical discussion on the often-agitated ques

tion of the origin of our ideas of Form, Colour, and Distance, which are erroneously supposed by many to be derived from the sense of touch, and to be merely the result of habit and experience. My interest in it was, however, as you may suppose, greatly increased, when, on Dr Spurzheim's arrival among us, I learnt from him that he had actually seen the patient, and examined her twice, in company with Mr Wardrope, and had even suggested some of the experiments mentioned by that gentleman,-a fact, the onission of which is the more to be regretted, as the knowledge of Dr S.'s cooperation would have given us double confidence in the accuracy of the experiments.

Before entering upon any analysis of the phenomena, we must first determine what are the conditions required for distinct and accurate vision ? and as these conditions regard three distinct parts, the eyeball, the optic nerve, and the brain, we shall speak of each in succession.

The eyeball is an organ composed of various membranes and transparent, humours, nicely adapted to the properties of light, and by means of which a picture or image of external objects is formed upon the thin expansion of the optic nerve, to be thence transmitted to the brain and mind, there to give rise to the various perceptions belonging to this sense. That it may suit its focus and direction to the particular objects which we wish to examine, it is capable of motion in all directions, and for this purpose it is supplied with muscles, which are under the guidance of the will, and by means of which both eyes are preserved in the same parallel, so that one eye cannot be turned to a side without the other instantly following it. Hence, in regard to the eyeball, to have correct vision, we must have all its membranes healthy, so that the luminous rays may enter it, its humours plump and transparent, so that the rays of light may pass through them, and its muscles implicitly under command, so that it may be steadily directed to its proper object. If the membranes are diseased and opaque,

the

passage of