accurate description of the organ's function in the phrase Sense of the pitch-relations of tones.

14. Caroline Street, Bedford Square, May 11. 1840.

RICHARD CULL.

II. Copy of a Letter lately addressed to the President and Members of the Phrenological Society of Paris, by Sir G. S. MACKENZIE, Bart.*

GENTLEMEN,In requesting you to place in your library a little volume on the Principles of Education, I wish to express my respect for the Phrenologists of Paris. The volume may be scarcely deemed worthy of the honour; but I trust you will duly appreciate my motives for having attempted to call the attention of the French nation to one of the most important applications of our science.

It has given me deep concern to be informed that Phrenology languishes amongst you. The cause of this I am inclined to attribute to the want of a strong effort to exhibit its practical utility, and to make the success of its application known to the public. I was told by a French physician in this town, that France was not the country in which great perseverance, and devoted energy, was ever bestowed on any object; and that, while we in Britain never ceased to push Truth forward until she was embraced, in France she was too much left to make her own way. I have some doubts of this, as a general proposition; because no people on the globe are more earnest in the pursuit of scientific discovery than the French, and no people have excelled them in that department. If the individual to whom I refer intended to say, that the French were not active in applying discovery when made, your nation is not singular in that respect. Everywhere the charm is found in making discovery; and no sooner is one discovery made than it is left to itself, and another is sought for. In every country it is certain that, when discovery can be applied to increase supply to our physical wants, and add to wealth, its application is pursued with eagerness. But it is disgraceful to the present age that our moral wants are scarcely, if at all, attended to. Crime is

The contents of this letter will sufficiently explain wherefore it is printed here. We understand that no notice was taken of it by the Paris Society. Surely there must have been some oversight in this neglect ! - Editor,

complained of, but its causes are not looked for. Effects are punished, instead of causes being removed; and thus the world stands still, and advances not one step in elevating human nature to the station which it was destined to occupy in the scale of being. Excuse me if I remark that the Phrenological Society of Paris holds the moral destiny of France in its hands. Let the duty of the society be done. Let its members arm themselves with the irresistible weapon of Truth, and go forth to conquer. Let them force on public attention not only the truths of Phrenology itself, but the applications of truth to practice. Let them not be discouraged by ridicule or obloquy, nor by the tardy approach of their countrymen to the light of the torch which they hold up. If I might presume to give advice, I should most anxiously exhort the society to make immediate use of a blessing which we do not possess in England, a Minister of Public Instruction. Besiege him with memorials and petitions to see, in person, that the predominant character of men may be known by an examination of the head. Satisfy himinsist on his being satisfied that, if this can be done, the most important improvements can be effected in education, in criminal legislation, in the care of the insane, and in the choice of men to superintend every kind of business, in the state, in municipal government, in commerce, in every thing. Tell him that the cultivation of the understanding alone may make men wise, but that alone it will not make men good members of society. Tell him that man has moral sentiments, and that their cultivation is necessary to render a people truly great, truly happy, and contented. Cease not to importune him and the public. Demand their attention to Truth. Institute lectures, and invite men in high stations to listen to them. Go to the prisons, and other public establishments, and exhibit your knowledge in discriminating character, and rest not till you prevail on men in power to attend you. In short, be every where with Phrenology, and you will, in a few years, have excited all France in its favour. Above all, visit schools; to accompany you to them, the Minister of Instruction cannot refuse. In these visits, let the teacher retire; and then point out the young persons who excel in different studies. Show them to the Minister, and then call in the teacher and desire him to point out those he knows do excel. You may also point out the tempers of boys, and separate the quarrelsome from the timid, &c. This is the way to propagate Phrenology. The world is too busy with self to attend to any thing that requires study. Show to it, therefore, some real facts, some valuable results, and then it will attend to you. But do not wait till it comes to you; go to it-force it by persevering importunity to

attend to you. The combined efforts of such men as compose the Phrenological Society of Paris, if directed as I have ventured (perhaps somewhat presumptuously) to propose, must bear all before them. The great fault of Phrenologists, every where, has been, that they confine themselves too much to mutual instruction and conversation, and reflection on farther discovery; but while they do so, they ought to consider the science sufficiently advanced to be applied extensively in practice. Medical men have numerous opportunities of disseminating Phrenology by talking to their patients about it, and divining to them their peculiarities. I beg your pardon for having said so much. Attribute my forwardness to my zeal.

I have sent a copy of my book to the Minister of Public Instruction; and I have suggested to him to send some able young men to Scotland with introductions which I can give, to see the true mode of conducting infant schools, and the instruction of youth of more advanced years. The Society may, perhaps, find young men who would willingly go under the auspices of the Minister, and be able to benefit by the mission.

Should you, Mr. President and Gentlemen, deem my little work likely to be of use in forwarding the cause of Phrenology, to which it may serve as an introduction, you will oblige me by making it known as extensively as may be in your power individually. With every feeling of respect, and ardent wishes for the prosperity of the Society, I have the honour, &c.

III. Phrenological Illustrations from the Encyclopædia Britannica. By Mr. ROBERT Cox.

In looking over some volumes of the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, I have observed a few passages, which, as illustrative of Phrenology, may be worthy of transference to the pages of the Phrenological Journal.

In the Life of Linnæus, (vol. xiii. p. 367.) we are told that "his head was large, and its hinder part very high; his look was ardent, piercing, and apt to daunt the beholder; his ear was not sensible to music; and his temper quick, but easily appeased. Nature had, in an eminent manner, been liberal in the endowment of his mind. He seems to have possessed a lively imagination, corrected by a strong judgment, a most retentive memory, unremitting industry, and the greatest perseverance in all his pursuits." To say nothing of the large head,

liberal endowment of the mental powers in general, and symptoms of a lively temperament, the coincidence between the loftiness of head at the organ of Firmness, and the persevering disposition of Linnæus, is sufficiently remarkable.

Although few are now to be found who seriously dispute the innateness of genius, the following quotation from Mr. Haydon's eloquent article on PAINTING, (vol. xvi. p. 721.) will not be out of place in your Journal : "If ever there was a refutation of Reynolds's own theory, that 'genius was the child of circumstances,' he was a living one; in spite of all circumstances, in spite of the utter want of all education as a painter, in spite of all the apathy of the nation, and the extinction of art in Europe, out he came with a vigour and beauty which have ever since defied rivalship in portrait and children."

It appears from the article MAHOMMED that the brain of that remarkable man was large, and his temperament, like that of so many other similar characters, sanguine-bilious. "The personal appearance and private life of the prophet have been minutely described by the Arabian writers. He was of the middle height, and of a sanguine temperament; his head was large, and his complexion dark, but animated by ruddy hues; his features were regular and strongly formed; his eyes black and full of fire; he had a prominent forehead, an aquiline nose, full cheeks, and well-proportioned jaws; his mouth, though rather wide, was well formed, and his teeth white but not closely set; his hair, before he had it shaved off, was black, and his thick bushy beard had scarcely begun to blench at the time of his death; on the lower lip he had a small black mark, and between his eyebrows a vein which swelled under the excitement of choler. His physiognomy was at once mild and majestic, and his gait free notwithstanding his stoutness. His bones were thick and solid; the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands were strong and coarse, his ear was acute, his voice fine and sonorous; and between the shoulders he had an excrescence or wen, which the Mahommedans called the seal of the prophecy,' and which disappeared after his death. Such is the portrait which the Arabian authors have left us of Mahommed, and of which the exactness seems to be attested by the minuteness of the details." (Vol. xiv. p. 30.)

Speaking of the unsatisfactory state of mental philosophy, and the little progress which it has made in comparison with the physical sciences, Professor Robison observes, (article PHILOSOPHY, vol. xvii. p. 445.) "We have not, perhaps, attained such a representation of human nature as will bear comparison with the original, nor will the legitimate deductions from such doctrines be of much more service to us for directing

our conduct than those of ancient times; for whilst we observe this difference between these two general classes of speculations, we may remark, that it is conjoined with a difference in the manner of conducting the study. We have proceeded according to the old Aristotelian method when investigating the nature of mind; yet we see the material philosophers running about, passing much of their time away from books in the shop of the artisan, or in the open fields engaged in observation, labouring with their hands, and busy with experiments. But the speculatist on the intellect and the active powers of the human soul seems unwilling to be indebted to any thing but his own ingenuity, and his labours are confined to the closet. In the first class, we have met with something like success, and we have improved many arts; in the other, it is to be feared that we are not much wiser, or better, or happier, for all our philosophical attainments.” It is the boast of the phrenologists that they proceed after the fashion of "the material philosophers;" let them preserve their consistency by observing carefully and extensively, in place of chiefly speculating, as some are too apt to do.

In the article MALEBRANCHE, (vol. xiv. p. 30.) and also in Mr. Stewart's Preliminary Dissertation, (vol. i. p. 74.) a curious fact is recorded of that great philosopher, on the authority of Bayle, Fontenelle, and D'Alembert. "It is a singular feature," says Mr. Stewart, "in the history of Malebranche, that, notwithstanding the poetical colouring, which adds so much animation and grace to his style, he never could read, without disgust, a page of the finest verses." Can any of your readers suggest an explanation of this circumstance, which, if true, seems as obscure to the phrenologist as it could be to Mr. Stewart? If, like his illustrious contemporary Locke, he had manifested in his style a deficiency of Ideality, we should not have been surprised to find in him the same indifference to poetry which was exhibited by the English philosopher. In Aikin's General Biography the subject is mentioned thus: "He ridiculed the constraint to which poets subject themselves, and could never read ten verses without disgust."

The article on PRACTICE OF PHYSIC (vol. xvii. p. 477.) contains some instructive observations on the occasional existence of organic disease in various organs of the body, with"It out any derangement of function being exhibited. has elsewhere been shown (PATHOLOGY, GENERAL) that very obvious deviations from the healthy exercise of the function of a part may manifest themselves during life, without its being possible to detect in that part, after death, the minutest deviation from its natural structure. And it is not less fully