subject of a reciprocated assault, and perhaps of a mortal injury. In phrenological terms, each would be met and answered by the organ corresponding to that whose language and manner he had mistakenly assumed.

"Nor does this rule apply less forcibly to the moral organs, than to those of the other compartments of the brain. The very aspect of an educated individual with a large developement of morality and reflection, his forehead elevated and broad, and the top of his head lofty and well arched, accompanied by the impressive and commanding air and manner that never fail to attend them, exerts over beholders a moral influence. Vice and impiety shrink from his approach, and no profane or unbecoming language is heard, nor vulgar indecencies practised in his presence. Is he in the pulpit? It is under his influence, in particular, that those who came to scoff, remain to pray.' Wherever he is, even wild riot and bacchanalian uproar are settled and silenced, by the mild but imposing authority of his appearance. These are the attributes which rendered so indescribably attractive and overawing, the aspect, air, and manner of Washington."

"Let the instructors in penitentiaries, then, be fully developed in the moral and reflective organs of the brain. Their organs of Benevolence, Veneration, Conscientiousness, and Hope, will so express themselves, by appearance, manner, and words, as to awaken in the convicts the requisite action in the same organs. By their very language and general expression, independently of the sentiments inculcated, Benevolence soothes and conciliates, Conscientiousness solemnises, Hope cheers with inviting prospects, in case of reformation, Wonder gives sanctity and force to inculcations of a belief in the existence of superior beings, while Veneration elevates and directs the soul toward its God. In the expression and eloquence of the latter organ, in particular, when highly excited, there is at sublimity of fervour and force, which melts down and subdues even obduracy itself. Nothing canting, boisterous, menacing, or loud; but a depth and solemn majesty of undertone, united to a glowing upward look, and an adoring attitude which nothing but the consum mation of far-gone depravity can resist. The speaker does not merely recite; he at once looks and acts the character he personates; and we all know how important that is to deep effect, as well in the pulpit as on the stage."

Again:

"A human being largely developed in the animal and knowing, and entirely wanting, or even greatly defective, in the two other compartments, would be a monument of profligacy and vice, utterly

beyond the hope of reform. Such, as the figures of their heads demonstrate, were the brutal developements of Caligula, Caracalla, Nero, Vitellius, and Domitian, whose names are identified with human depravity; and such the developement of Alexander VI. the most blood-thirsty, treacherous, and profligate pontiff that ever disgraced the See of Rome. To these names might be added, were it necessary, a host of others of the same description. In fact, no instance can be cited of a human monster, instinctively delighting in cruelty and blood, and yet fully developed in the moral region of his brain. Mere animals in appetite, such beings are the same in developement."

"Hence oven in boys, whose foreheads are unusually low, and the tops of their heads flat or depressed, and the base of whose brain, from ear to ear, is inordinately wide, with a very large amount of brain behind the ear, we discover a ruling propensity to vice; or, at least, to low and vulgar animal indulgences, which, if not checked and changed, must terminate in vice. Such boys have the true ruffian developement, and will inevitably become ruffians, unless preserved by dint of education. Nor is such preservation an easy task. Their ruling passion is animal, and inclines to grossness as naturally as a ponderous body tends to the centre. Still they may be saved by moral training, provided it be commenced early, judiciously conducted, and inflexibly persevered in. But if they remain uneducated and idle, and be exposed to the influence of bad example, they are inevitably lost. Their animal habits will become, in a short time, so irrevocably confirmed, as to baffle all redeeming efforts."

We have referred to this pamphlet chiefly to show the striking similitude of views that may be formed, and that often are formed, by different writers, residing even in distant hemispheres, and being often entire strangers to each other, when they examine their subjects under the influence of the same principles, and when those principles are true. In 1828 or 1829, Dr. Caldwell wrote on " Pemitentiary Discipline and Moral Reform" in the United States, and about the same period Mr. Combe was framing his opinions on the same subject in Scotland. Both gentlemen were governed by phrenological principles; and their labours resulted in tenets and doctrines precisely the same, and those doctrines, in many respects, exceed. ingly different from any thing of the kind that had been previously broached. An event more confirmatory of the truth of phrenology, can hardly be imagined.

(To be continued.)

The objects of education, using the word in its widest and most legitimate sense, are, 1st, To increase the energy and activity of those faculties of the mind and body which are naturally too weak; 2dly, To repress the inordinate action of those which are naturally too strong; and 3dly, To give to the combined operation of the whole, such a direction as shall most certainly and effectually increase the happiness and extend the sphere of usefulness of the individual.

To attain these ends, our efforts must be conducted in strict obedience to the laws which nature has established for the regulation of the functions of both mind and body. It is therefore particularly necessary that we should be previously in possession of a true theory of the human mind, capable of unfolding to us not only the number and functions of the primitive mental faculties themselves, but also the organic conditions which conduce to their greater or less degree of energy-the laws which regulate their activity-and the effects produced upon the general character by their different proportional combinations. Accordingly, the want of such a theory of mind is the true reason why, in ignorance of phrenology, the most profound writers on education are still so much occupied in discussing contested points of very secondary importance, instead of starting, as is recommended by Mr. Stewart, from undeniable first principles, obtained from " a previous examination of those faculties and principles of mind which it is the great object of education to improve ;" and we are therefore disposed to regard it as in itself no small proof of the truth and value of the phrenological philosophy, that it already affords a sure, stable, and consistent basis for the erection of an improved system of education, and that it supplies the desiderata above stated.

The chief circumstances which influence the activity of the faculties may be comprised under four heads or chapters:-1st, Original constitution; 2d, Physical education; 3d, The mode in which each faculty is exercised; and 4th, Their mutual influence in exciting or repressing each other.

Being a review of Dr. Spurzheim's work on Education, from No. 4 of the Edinburgh Phrenological Journal.

VOL. III.-5

Original Constitution.-Dr. Spurzheim goes a step farther back than most other writers on education, and taking observation for his guide, and finding the mental qualities and capacities of the progeny to be intimately connected with, and dependent upon, the bodily constitution inherited from the parents, and believing that education ought to be an imitation of nature's own laws, and not an invention of ours, he strenuously insists that we ought to begin at the root, and that, after having ascertained, by careful observation, what qualities of mind and body in the parents are most likely to secure for their offspring the most favourable moral, intellectual, and corporeal constitution, we ought to seek for and combine these qualities, or the nearest approximation to them which can be found. Nor is this a matter of little moment; for the more we examine nature, the more we shall be convinced that education operates invariably in subjection to the laws of organisation, and that it is impossible to improve the mind beyond the limits imposed upon it by its connection with its material organ, or even to alter materially such lineaments of the character as are strongly drawn by the hand of nature. It is at once in illustration of, and in obedience to this law, that we find great intellectual power and favourable moral dispositions as invariably connected with a large, healthy, well-developed brain, and feeble intellect and moral deficiency as invariably the attendants of a small or very defective brain, and different or opposite dispositions and talents as invariably accompanied with very different states or configurations of brain, as if mind were merely a function of matter. Hence, as the brain is a component part of the animal system, and is subject to all the laws of living organised matter, its peculiarities, and the mental qualities consequent upon them, are transmitted from parents to children with as much certainty, because in obedience to the same laws, as features, noses, forms, or diseases. It has indeed been long known as an abstract fact, in the natural history of man and animals, that the qualities of the mind, as well as of the body, descend from generation to generation-that children of weak and nervous parents are themselves delicate, easily agitated, and subject to convulsions—that the idiots, or cretins, of Switzerland, produce a race inferior to themselves-that the children of insane parents are generally, sooner or later, afflicted with the same disease and that those of healthy, robust, and long-lived ancestors, are in general distinguished for similar qualities; but, either from ignorance of the principle according to which it happens, and which demonstrates that it will happen again, or from an absurd fear of degradation, by admitting his own subjection to the laws which God has set over animal nature, man has not chosen to act upon it in

improving his own species, but has married and given in marriage, as if all the qualities of mind and body were directly under his own control; and when overtaken by the consequences of his own neglect, and when vice, imbecility, and disease, usurp in his offspring the place of that virtue, talent, and vigour, which he in vain expected to arise from good education alone, he looks upon himself as a hapless and devoted victim, who had no share in the production of his own misery, and whose only duty is to submit to the painful dispensations of a Superior Power, without making an effort to decipher and profit by the lessons which these inflictions are meant to convey. The laws of nature are ever the same; and in the days of Moses we find them giving rise to restrictions on the marriage of blood-relations, for the very reason that they are either unfruitful, or productive of degenerate offspring. If a knowledge of the operation of these laws were deeply impressed upon the mind of our youth, it is scarcely conceivable that we should so often have to lament the extinction of whole families by consumption, the quickly-spreading miseries of insanity and imbecility, and the innumerable ills attending weak and infirm health.

The chapter on this subject is one of the most valuable in Dr. Spurzheim's book, and to it we must refer the reader for further details. It is written with perfect good taste, delicacy, and propriety. We shall only add, that among other important requisites in parents, Dr. S. mentions a sound constitution, untainted with any hereditary disease, and a sound, active, well-balanced mind, indicated by a large and well-proportioned brain, and that these qualities should be chosen in preference, in families where they have been the accompaniment of generations; as where a good individual appears in a bad or indifferent state, the chance of the reappearance in the offspring of the different qualities of the stock is very great. Hence the importance attached to pedigree is in reality founded in a law of nature; and hence, also, the value attached to it in the case of the lower animals, where each parent has been selected for his peculiar excellencies. In man, it is by no means so sure an index of the possession of the virtues of the original stock, as the choice of partners is scarcely attended to.

The age of the parents, their health, and especially that of the mother, and their state of mind, all exercise much influence on the destinies of their progeny; but this is not the place to enter further into detail.

Having pointed out the means likely to secure a good constitution to those unborn, Dr. Spurzheim proceeds, in the second chapter, to lay down the principles which ought to guide us in our endeavours