Dr. Barlow is a young man, the essay before us being his Inaugural Dissertation, on the occasion of taking his Medical Degree; and though it affords no evidence that its author is now acquainted with Phrenology, it indicates a turn of mind very likely to make him so at no distant period. The purport of the Dissertation is to show that diseases are the consequences flowing from neglect of those moral, organic, and physical laws of the universe, by which human beings are preserved and guided; and that being so, they become indirectly the remedies of evils by inducing mankind to learn those laws and adapt their conduct to them. He would also go a step beyond this, for he contends that even as the means, independently of the end to be attained, disease is beneficial. But our author's own words will best convey his ideas on these points: "We have endeavoured," he writes, " in the course of this essay, to show that disease is not an evil, but on the contrary, that it is an appointed remedy for evils; that is for the voluntary acts of rational agents at variance with moral and physical laws, the consequences of which are seen in the sufferings to which human beings are subject: these sufferings having, by the benevolent will of the all-wise Governor of the world, a natural tendency to occasion the removal of the causes which have given rise to them, and thus to make mankind, on the whole, better and happier. The advantages resulting from disease are two-fold — the immediate and ultimate; the former arise in consequence of the part which disease acts in keeping up some sense of religion and of moral obligation—in stimulating to virtue, and thereby strengthening every good principle-in promoting benevolence, and affording a wide field for the cultivation of the human feelings-and, in relation to the sufferer, its influence in changing the dispositions and affections of the heart, one of the most important and highest offices - together with the assistance it affords to the progress of science, and the promotion of the useful arts generally: the latter, or its ultimate advantage, is the study of its laws, and thereby the perception and removal of the causes which have occasioned it." (Page 66.) By adducing instances of much suffering which have led to the discovery of certain constant facts or laws, and thus given us a knowledge calculated to prevent or alleviate similar calamities in future, and by directing his reader's attention to various beneficial consequences resulting from diseases, our author makes out a case for the truth and accuracy of which there does thus appear strong primâ facie evidence. The fault we have to find with the author here, as is the case also with almost every other writer on the same question, is, that he argues as an advocate for one side, and does not present the evidence for the opposite side with the same force and prominence. He speaks, for instance, of malaria, contagion, fever, plague, smallpox, and cholera, contending that beneficial results are produced by them. But the occurrence of an epidemic gives rise to thousands and millions of single events or consequences, all of which can be traced back, more or less satisfactorily, to the prior event the existence of the epidemic. Would it not then be most strange, most contrary to the ordinary commingling of good and ill which we observe in all things affecting human beings, were the whole of these thousands and millions of consequences to be pure evils? Is it not more reasonable to expect both good and ill? If so, the duty of one contending that the epidemic disease is an advantage, not an evil, involves a far more difficult inquiry and proof than the citing of some evidence of good consequences. The essential question should be, first, whether a greater amount of good than of evil is caused by the disease; and secondly, whether the surplus of good (if any) is an adequate counterpoise to the existence of the epidemic. Our author must excuse us for thinking that he has done very little towards effecting a solution of this wider question. To say that disease is beneficial because it leads to the knowledge which may prevent its recurrence, does seem a most oblique mode of reasoning. If disease be not an evil, as our author contends, the power of preventing it must be valueless. But if disease be an evil, it cannot surely be deemed a counterpoise that the evil tends to correct itself; for the disease in that case is an actual and positive evil, while the prevention of it, that is, its absence, is at best only a negative good, deriving its value solely from the previous existence of the evil. The question is most obscure and difficult, and much more must be known before we ean feel authorised to decide upon it. If we turn from the consequences to the race, and direct attention exclusively to the consequences to individuals; in becoming thus special we find an increased difficulty of believing diseases exclusively beneficial. A patient racked with the pangs of a severe attack of gout, perhaps brought upon him by the foolish conduct of his parents, which he had no power to prevent, or one whose life is embittered and wearing away to an early and painful termination from calculus, will scarcely be persuaded that his torments are not evils. It would be vain to tell the sufferer, that others may derive benefit from his misery, that physicians will be thereby induced to seek knowledge, which knowledge may possibly prevent similar sufferings to others yet unborn. Can the wretched patient sincerely believe that he ought thus to suffer in order to procure the chance of reprieve to others whom he cares not for? What thousands and millions, individually quite incapable of ascertaining and effecting the conditions requisite to avoid disease, have been thus sacrificed for the good of others! Why should this vast amount of misery have been suffered by A., B., C., and the rest, in order that D., E., F., and others, should have rather less thereafter, for as yet it only comes to this difference of degree; and how intense is the degree, and how vast is the amount of daily suffering still! It is to be feared, that so long as we must look upon natural occurrences with human eyes and human feelings, we cannot pronounce this world a "system of optimism," as our author seems willing to do. But it is also said, that immediate benefits flow from disease, independently of the ultimate advantages to which we have just alluded. Unquestionably so; but here, again, as in reference to the race, we must inquire whether the advantages to the individual sufferers are equivalent to their pains. It is said that suffering tends to chasten the mind, to keep up a sense of religion and moral obligation, and to promote feelings of benevolence and virtue. True, it does this at times, and in some persons; but in a vast many instances, suffering does not excite the moral feelings only; on the contrary, it makes the purely selfish and animal feelings more intense: whence the proverbial waywardness and irritability of the sick-bed or imperfect convalescence. Often, too, the apparent moral improvement is only the temporary feebleness or apathy of a mind rendered unfit for its wonted manifestations of fraud, violence, or licentiousness. How many, also, die in anguish, both mental and corporeal, before any moral advantage has been reaped from their sufferings! Again, it behoves a physician to bear in mind that Man is only one amongst an immense number of created beings. Many of the diseases and accidents, the bodily pains and mental sufferings to which he is liable, are far from being exclusively his own, but are shared largely by other animals; some being reciprocally communicated from them to him, or from him to them. If it be assumed as probable, and we, at least, do not dispute this probability, that disease may have been partly designed as a spur to impel mankind to trace its origin, and to discover the natural laws with which it is in connexion, why should the same sufferings have been extended to countless myriads of created beings, utterly unable either to discover or to avoid the causes of their misery? He who would satisfactorily explain the origin and the ends of disease and pain, must constantly keep in view, that the laws of organic life involve the brute creation as well as man. Pain cannot impel them to scientific discoveries; nor can it elevate them to a sense of moral and religious obligation. Our object, in making these comments upon Dr. Barlow's moral interpretations of natural events, is not to deny either the force of his arguments, or the likelihood of their soundness, to some extent. What we would impress upon our readers, is, that, whilst there are so many and so important outstanding facts not reconcileable with this interpretation, it cannot be supposed that we have yet seized the one great principle which may hereafter be discovered as a full solution of this difficult question. As unfolding secondary uses, we do not at all dispute Dr. Barlow's explanations; but we can view them only as pointing out some collateral advantages from disease which are not unmixed with corresponding disadvantages. The space at our command will not allow us to enter upon another topic involved in the Dissertation; namely, the possibility and consequences of "voluntary acts at variance with moral and physical laws." Understanding this term "laws to mean the established order or system of nature, we think that much confusion has been introduced into the reasoning of authors who have written upon the question; and we are disposed to maintain, that so far as man can infringe the laws of nature, he can do so either for good or for ill: consequently, not only his sufferings, but also many of his pleasures, arise from infringement of the physical and organic laws, if not infringement of the moral laws as well; and that, on the contrary, obedience would often cause suffering, and is frequently impossible. The proper explanation of our views on this point must be postponed to a future opportunity; and we shall conclude the present notice, by recommending Dr. Barlow's Dissertation to our medical friends, and at the same time also recommending the science of Phrenology to his attention, if he be not already conversant with it. We have reprinted (page 119.) his illustrations of the "connexion of disease with war," on account of their moral bearings, and of their applicability to our Canadian quarrels. There is, however, one additional remark, which we would yet make before closing this notice of the work. In the Preface the author writes, "The very flattering manner in which, as an Inaugural Dissertation,' it was received and approved of by the Medical Faculty, induced the Author to print it in its present form." "The Medical Faculty," as we presume, signifies the medical examiners of the University. They have resolutely set their faces against Mr. Combe's works and the philosophical doctrines which are inculcated in them; yet, " when the same views are presented by another, they are "received and approved of" in a "very flattering manner!" We say the same views," because the general doctrine of Combe is essentially that which is here applied in one special direction by Dr. Barlow. IV. Lecture on Education. By W. B. HODGSON. Edinburgh: WE have been greatly pleased by a perusal of this Lecture, which was delivered in October last, at the opening of the second session of the "Edinburgh Association of the Working Classes, for their social, intellectual, and moral improvement;" although rather sceptical as to the likelihood of the lecturer's views being fully understood by the class of persons to whom he was addressing himself. If understood by them, the working men of Edinburgh must be at least a generation in advance of those of the same social rank in the country towns and villages of England. In the parish in which this page is written, thickly peopled, and within fifteen miles of London, we much doubt whether one per cent. of the working men would have understood the lecturer; and it is even problematical whether a larger per centage of sufficiently intelligent auditors could be selected from its inhabitants, were the shopkeepers and farmers joined with the labourers and artisans. In the manufacturing towns of England, where Mechanics' Institutions have been some time established, and other facilities of instruction have been afforded, the case might be otherwise; yet even in these places, we fear that a more commonplace and humbler style of instruction would be required to kindle any responsive fire in the many. Mr. Hodgson's views are sound and liberal, and in scope and spirit essentially agree with those propounded in former Numbers of this Journal and other phrenological works; but there is a force and freshness in his mode of conveying them which sufficiently indicate that he is not repeating a lesson parrotwise, but has studied his subject and made the ideas his own. In reading the lecture, we had marked several passages as well meriting quotation, although we now find the space at our disposal insufficient for the half of them. In consequence, we shall select only three, as examples of the author's mode of treating his subject, and chosen for the importance, more than for the novelty, of the views inculcated; though good |