imagines that he sees in any external signs of predisposition, a necessitating cause, or even an index to the future character! Yet, it is in these absurd inferences from the Craniological doctrine of Gall and Spurzheim, that all the mischief lies; while, no doubt, what has rendered the doctrine attractive to many persons is, the supposed aid which it gives to the mischievous dogmas of the Physiological Necessitarian. In point of fact, it yields them no countenance or support; and therefore, the system may be allowed to stand or fall according to its intrinsic merits.

Mr. Abernethy has no hesitation in admitting the proposition that the brain of animals ought to be regarded as the organization by which their percipient principle becomes variously affected:" he assigns the following reasons for his opinions.

1st, Because, in the senses of sight, hearing, and smelling, I see distinct organs for the production of each sensation. 2. Because the brain is larger and more complicated in proportion as the variety of affections of the percipient principle is increased. 3. Because diseases and injuries disturb or annul particular faculties and affections without influencing others. 4. Because it seems to me more reasonable to suppose that whatever is perceptive may be variously affected by means of vital actions transmitted through a diversity of organization, than to suppose that such variety depends upon original differences in the nature of the percipient principle.'

But, that reason and the nobler sentiments of our nature arise from organization or mere vital actions, and that the organs themselves are perceptive,-are notions which he deems it impossible for any rational being seriously to entertain. It is an unanswerable objection to the supposition of the Materialist, that it militates against the unity of that which is perceptive, rational, and intelligent.

The perceptive and intellectual phenomena cannot be rationally accounted for upon the supposition that the brain is an assemblage of organs, each possessing its own perceptiveness, intelligence, and will, There must be a common centre, as I may express it, to which all the vital actions tend, and from which all attention, ratiocination, decision, and volition proceed. Our attention may be so inactive or absent, so occupied by our own imaginations and thoughts, or abstracted, that we are scarcely conscious there is any thing surrounding us. Though we possess extensive perceptions by means of vital actions, yet we attend to but one subject at a time. We can direct our attention to any of our various sensations and feelings, to the operation of any of our faculties and sentiments; and, therefore, if Gall and Spurzheim's opinions of the structure of the brain be true, that which is attentive must have communication with all parts of the organ.'

character, has been found to admit of far higher attainments than was suspected. A more perfect organization may be considered as a great physical advantage; but it will not be pretended that there are many instances in which the development of intellect has been carried as far as the physical structure would allow. Yet, till that point is reached, organization cannot be justly said to have come into operation as even a limiting cause.

Again, the mere existence of predisposition cannot account for the predominance of predisposition over those faculties and sentiments which, according even to Spurzheim's view of human nature, are designed, and are adequate to control those propensities.

Though the possession of original dispositions, faculties, and sentiments, may create a tendency to certain actions, yet Gall and Spurzheim admit, that it is education which produces knowledge and character: it is the disposition and ability to do what has been repeatedly done, and with progressive improvement, that gives us talents and habits of thinking, feeling, and acting in a particular manner. It is repetition, or education, by which, also, motives are rendered so predominant that we feel the indispensable necessity of implicit and energetic obedience to their commands, which is called enthusiasm, and which has given rise to glorious deeds, dignifying and exalting human nature far above animal existence. Religious sentiment, conscientious justice, patriotism, and even personal honour, have induced mankind to bear the greatest evils, without betraying any of the unworthy propensities of our nature.

Even facts and opinions may, by repetition, acquire a preponderance and value that did not originally belong to them. Questionable assertions may by degrees obtain the authority and power of established facts; and opinions, which at first were doubtful, may in like manner acquire a delusive influence over his mind. On the other hand, we may suppress and bring into disuse, propensities and sentiments which may have been naturally strong, till they become inert and inoperative. No better proof of this can be required, or needs be adduced, than the complete change of character or conduct which is caused by the imitation of others, and by habits acquired from those with whom we associate; a change so generally known and recognised, that its effects have become proverbial. "Don't tell me," says Sancho Panza, "by whom you were bred, but with whom you are fed."'

Nothing, then, can evince a more perverted judgement, than to represent man as the creature of organization, whatever view we take of the physiological question, when it is so obvious and undeniable, that he is almost infinitely more the creature of habit; the moral cause being every day seen to triumph over the predisposing physical cause, and either to suspend or to annihilate its influence. How completely must professional studies have warped the mind of the man who

ment or of intellectual character, they might be known as rules of observation, while the coincidence should remain wholly unaccounted for. The shape of the skull, confessedly, does not! answer to the external figure of the brain: it cannot, therefore, be determined by it. These convex knobs are not concavities designed to make room for its action. They can only be considered as hieroglyphic sculptures on the case which encloses the machinery; and if Dr. Spurzheim can decipher them, well and good. But he must not call them organs, or take it for granted that there are local organs answering to every knob.

Of the existence of strong intellectual predispositions and animal propensities in mankind, we entertain no doubt. We are also tempted to believe that there is some correctness in Dr. Spurzheim's craniological observations with regard to the signs of many of those propensities; that they have some foundation in fact. For otherwise, we should find it impossible to account for the vast number of instances in which his craniological rules have led to the detection of individual characteristics. The coincidences have been too numerous and striking to admit of being slightly disposed of. Because they have been employed to prove too much, it does not follow that they prove nothing. What we chiefly dislike in the System is, the mixing up of intellectual with moral predispositions, and connecting the latter also with the brain. The classification is unnatural, and, we think, unsound. An organization adapted to the faculty of constructiveness, or to that of calculation, or to that of imaginative combination, we can understand. But organs of benevolence, of veneration, or of other moral qualities, appear to us terms without meaning. So far as the predisposition to good or evil qualities has any existence in the physical constitution of man, (and since it exists in the brute animal, we see no room for denying that it may have a physical origin,) such predisposition must be regarded as having a connexion with the temperament, not with the cerebral structure. On this point, we are sorry to be at issue with Mr. Abernethy, who expresses his satisfaction with Gall and Spurzheim's arrangement, because it places the sentiments and dispositions in their real 'situation-the head.' And he expresses his surprise that an anatomist so eminent as Bichat, should represent the heart to be the seat of feeling, the head of thought. We will not contend about the exact seat of feeling; but of this we are well persuaded, that what Bichat calls the organic life, is chiefly implicated, as a system of functions, in those predispositions to certain passions or tempers which frequently discover themselves before thought could possibly give birth to them. And we entertain no doubt that the simple circumstance of health in the

very earliest stages of life, by which we mean, the vigorous and harmonious play of all the animal functions, has much more to do with the future disposition, than is generally suspected.

That the intelligence which produces emotion is received by the brain, and that it secondarily affects the heart, we admit. But then, the brain, not being the seat of emotion, cannot be the seat of those dispositions and feelings which determine the degree and character of emotion. The organs of such dispositions are not, therefore, to be sought for in the brain.

There seems nothing incredible in the notion, that the head would prove to be, could we but make it out, the physiognomical index to the whole organization. We see in the amplitude of the forehead the marks of intellectual capacity; in the development of the lips, the signs of a sanguine or of a phlegmatic temperament; in the lower parts of the face, the strength of the animal propensities. Why should the knobs on the surface of the head, any more than the features of the face, be considered as indications relating only to the brain? As physiognomical signs, they might be found to relate equally to the functions of the organic system,-to the size of the liver, the force of the heart, or the texture and action of the bowels. These are the real organs of jealousy, benevolence, decision, and heroism; and we see no reason why they should not have their representative knobs, as well as the intellectual organs of the brain. It appears to us a great mistake to hunt in the medullary membrane for the organs of emotion, which lie much lower down in the system. These discover themselves in the configuration of the face; why may not the stomach and the liver have their share in determining also the shape of the cranium?

The signs, then, even of moral qualities or dispositions, may occupy the situation assigned them on the surface of the brain-box, though we cannot tell how they got there. The strange and revolting juxta-position, however, of some of these knobs, makes much against the correctness of the arrangement. The nomenclature of the system, too, is, in reference to the indications of moral organs, both offensively injudicious and liable to perversion. This remark applies more especially to the organ of veneration. The notion of an organization exciting in us reverence for the Deity, strikes us as grossly improper. Reverence for the Deity has assuredly not its place in the brain; and although certain natural turns of mind must be allowed to be more favourable than others to the cultivation of piety, we cannot believe that these are indicated by any knob on the top of the head.

On the whole, the system of Gall and Spurzheim, considered as an organological system, we consider as having no better foundation than imperfect induction and gratuitous supposition. But it has been charged with consequences which do not attach to it, supposing it to be true, and has given rise to unfounded alarms and unjust aspersions. As a physiognomical system, we think it imbodies a number of curious facts, mixed up with much that is uncertain, and with not a little that is, in terms, absurd. Let it be pursued, however, as a branch of physiognomy, and we see no objection to the study; although whether it will ever assume the true character of a science, seems very questionable.

Art. IX. A Brief Memoir of the late Thomas Bateman, M.D. Third Edition. pp. 24. London. 1822.

THIS brief Memoir of the last days of a man as eminent in his

profession as he was estimable in private life, but who, up to within a few months of his death, was an infidel,-presents exactly one of those signs' which the world are continually asking for, and which the half-believer requires to satisfy him of the truth and power of Christianity. We have seldom perused an obituary more striking in its nature, or more judiciously drawn up. The conversion of Dr. Bateman, (for, if his was not a conversion, then the word is wholly misapplied to the change wrought upon Saul of Tarsus,) was of the most unequivocal, decided, and satisfactory kind. Here is nothing at which the philosopher can sneer, or the scoffer cavil. The tract is an argument addressed at once to the understanding and the heart; and we have no doubt that it will be extensively useful.

Scott's Essays was the work which, after Dr. Bateman's mind became alive to the subject of religion, was the chief means of producing a total change in his views and feelings. He died exactly one week before his revered but unknown instructor.

He never ceased to remember, with the deepest gratitude, his obligations to that excellent man. It was only the evening before his death that he was recommending with great fervency to a young friend, whose mother, under affliction, was first beginning to inquire after religious truth, to engage her to read "Scott's Essays," acknowledging, with fervent gratitude, the benefit he had himself received from that work, and concluding an animated eulogium, by saying, "How have I prayed for that man!" What a blessed meeting may we not suppose they have had in the world of glory!

The medical friend before alluded to has most justly remarked, that the entire simplicity and sincerity of Dr. Bateman's natural character give additional value to all that fell from him. He never used a language