heads, the organs of the propensities are much the largest ; if these were small in the head in question, while those of the intellect were large, the brain, as a whole, might be small, and yet the intellectual region might be overwhelming. Thus, the head of Melancthon was by no means as large as that of Bishop the murderer, or Tardy the pirate; but the intellectual region of the former was splendid, and those of the two latter despicable.

Before leaving the lecturer's second inquiry, we will present the reader with a sample of his-want of candor, shall we call it? or singular obtuseness. It consists in a quotation from Mr. George Combe, and the use he makes of it. The quotation is as follows:

"If we take two heads, in sound health, of similar age, in each of which several organs are in similar proportions, but the one of which is large, and the other small, and if the preponderance of manifestation is not in favor of the first, then phrenology must be abandoned as destitute of foundation."

On the above quotation, Dr. Sewall makes the following remark:

"If the relative size of the brain be intended, then it is necessary to know with what it is to be compared; whether with the dimensions of the face, the size and length of the neck, the size of the spinal marrow, the cerebral nerves, or with the volume of the whole body. Upon this point, phrenologists have not been explicit.”

Not explicit! What, when he (Mr. Combe) distinctly mentions "two heads," "one large, and the other small," and speaks of the "preponderance of power," in the case! Any one might have learned from this, that "relative size was intended," and that the comparison was to be made between the two heads. Will Dr. S. please to specify what would have been explicit, if Mr. Combe's language is deficient in explicitness?

The lecturer next inquires, "How far it is possible to ascertain the volume of the brain in the living subject, by measurement or observation ;" and his discussion is designed to prove, that, on this subject, it is impossible to arrive at certainty. Here phrenology and Dr. Sewall are at issue. Phrenology asserts that it is possible. But, be it observed, this assertion is made with some limitations; as, for example, that the living subject of examination be sane, or in sound health, and not of advanced age. And, unless these limitations are regarded, in

the attempts to overthrow phrenology, the contest is unfair, and the arguments drawn from the cases adduced are inconclusive. Now these limitations Dr. Sewall has left out of view, and has placed the question in such a position, as that, if he can find a few skulls in which it would have been impossible, while the subjects were living, to determine the amount of brain within, the victory would, by common readers, be awarded to him. We shall advert briefly to the cases he has adduced.

The first is that of a robust waterman, drowned in the prime of life. Here the skull is about one eighth of an inch thick. In this case, we find no fault with the lecturer's procedure; he gives as much of the history of the subject as we need.

The second case is that of a young and once beautiful female, but who swerved from the paths of virtue, and died in abject poverty. This skull is a quarter of an inch thick. It is upon the comparison of these two skulls, that the lecturer begins to sound the note of triumph. "Here we have two skulls,” says he, “from healthy individuals, in the vigor of life, the one a male, and the other a female; and to render the contrast more striking, the skull of the female is twice the thickness of that of the male." And what does this difference amount to? To the astonishing sum of one eighth of an inch! Surely Dr. S. might have known, that there are heads, many hundreds of heads,-which, measured across certain organs, from side to side, exhibit a difference more than eight times as great as this; and, moreover, "to render the contrast more striking," that often the head which, on the whole, is the smaller, will be the greater (by a whole inch), over the part measured.

Cases 3 to 6, inclusive, are a series of skulls, each thicker than the preceding, and the last of which is over an inch in thickness. Of course, common readers would infer, that such cases were frequent, and that the pretensions of phrenology to judge by the exterior head of the amount of brain within, must be groundless. We are ready to admit, that if the cases were frequent, and if they occurred in healthy subjects,—i. e., in the sane, and such as were under old age, it would be impossible, that the conclusions of phrenology should be sound. This, however, is not the c se. Dr. Sewall tells us, indeed, of the “structure" of these skulls being "healthy;" by which he means, that the particles of bony matter appear to have been

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deposited in the usual manner, and that the functions of that part of the system were not disturbed. But why does he not tell us that the subjects were sane, and healthy, and of middle age? Why does he say of them, "the history of the individuals here delineated I shall not detail?" This language implies that he knew their history; and we happen to know this to be the fact. We call on Dr. Sewall to give this history to the world; and to tell us whether these were not cases of maniacs. We are fully persuaded, not to say certain, that they were. That this was the case with one of them we, and hundreds of others, know, beyond a doubt. The thickest of these skulls (viz., that from the cabinet of Spurzheim) was exhibited by him, in his lectures in Boston and Cambridge; and he told his audiences, that it was the skull of a man who was, for twenty years, a raging maniac. Such a skull, of course, proves nothing against the truth of phrenology, which only undertakes to judge in the case of the healthy subject.

Under the lecturer's fourth inquiry,-how far it is practicable to ascertain the degree of development of the different parts of the brain, by measurement or examination of the living head, we are referred to a plate, from the skull of a man who had an enormous frontal sinus. From this, which is not professed by Dr. S. to be common, the inference is drawn, that no certainty on the subject of inquiry can be attained. We were really amused, after the gross and palpable errors of which we have convicted Dr. S., to find him pronouncing, from the skull in question, that its possessor ought to have been “a Rubens in painting, a Humboldt in arrangement, and in form, size and weight, a Wren, a Douglass, or a Simpson. His comparison and ideality would have placed him by the side of Dean Swift and the Earl of Chatham; and his locality represented him as quite equal to Columbus, Newton, Volney and Sir Walter Scott." We have no disposition to display the poverty of phrenological knowledge, which is proved in this passage.

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The man, whose skull is portrayed in the plate, was a boring man, who became intemperate, and died at the age of thirty." If his death resulted from intemperance, which is implied in the narrative, disease might be the cause of the appearances described, and probably was so. In that case, it does not disprove phrenology, and renders no service to the lecturer. But we are willing to take up the case on the supposition, that the appearances did not so result. In this case,

we have only an instance in which phrenology encounters a difficulty. Its advocates all allow, that it is attended by some; and no science is without them. In all cases, where there is an apparent extraordinary development of the organs in the lower region of the forehead, phrenology teaches her advocates to suspect the existence of a sinus; and to suspend their judgment. Such a case, then, presents a difficulty to the phrenologist; but the difficulty does not extend beyond that case to all others. Sinuses are by no means universal; they are not even very common. There are anomalous cases, in which large ones exist; and their existence, where large, is always indicated; and a judicious phrenologist would, in the presence of the indication, pass no judgment, or, at most, a modified one.

Our author next passes on to the difficulty arising from a large temporal muscle. But this difficulty is not insuperable, and, indeed, is quite inconsiderable. Dr. Sewall says, "it covers, wholly or in part, the organs of destructiveness, constructiveness, acquisitiveness, secretiveness, cautiousness, ideality, number and tune." A better knowledge of the science he professes to refute (see Spurzheim) would have taught him, that the muscle in question only covers constructiveness, acquisitiveness and secretiveness. And it presents little or no difficulty in ascertaining the size of these; for there is a wide difference between bone and muscle, a difference which can be appreciated by the touch; and as, in judging of the development of these organs, the touch is always resorted to, and that in connection with the action of the jaws, the swelling and sinking of the muscle in question renders a mistake of it, for the bone of the skull, impossible.

Most of the lecturer's concluding facts, though designed to invalidate the pretensions of phrenology, do actually sustain them; and they are such, that we are surprised Dr. S. should have adduced them. And such as are not thus confirmatory, are by no means refutatory; for example, that of a man who lost two teacups full of brain, and yet was of brighter intellect than before. The case will not invalidate the claims of phrenology, unless the two cups full of brain were taken from the forehead, or the region of the intellect; and this is not asserted. The increase in intellectual activity might be the result of inflammatory action in the intellectual region, allied to which, if not identical with it, was the effect produced in Mr. Pinckney by the ardor of debate, and which our author adduces in support of his position.

There are other portions of this lecture on which we had intended to remark; but they either have been virtually considered already, or are not of sufficient importance to demand an extended notice.

ARTICLE V.

BUCKLAND'S GEOLOGY.

Geology considered with reference to Natural Theology. By the Rev. WILLIAM BUCKLAND, D. D., Canon of Christ Church, and Professor of Geology in the University of Oxford. Philadelphia. 8vo. pp. 443. With a volume of Plates. 1837.

GEOLOGY has for the last twenty years been gradually rising into notice, and is now fast becoming one of the most popular of the sciences. Nor is it unworthy of the place it is so rapidly gaining in the public mind. While, in the dignity and grandeur of its subjects, it is scarcely inferior to astronomy, in the extent, richness and variety of the field which it opens to view, it far surpasses all the other physical sciences. At the same time, the facts upon which it is built are so accessible, they rest upon evidence so full and satisfactory, and lead to conclusions so sublime and so unexpected, that the most listless and indifferent inquirer cannot fail of being roused to an intense interest, while pursuing its investigations.

But, unfortunately, there still exists in the minds of many, even among the educated classes, a strong prejudice against this most fascinating study. This prejudice has arisen, in part, from the wild and visionary spirit which characterized the speculations of the earlier geologists, and in part from the greatly extended periods, which, on the adoption of juster principles of philosophizing, it has been found necessary to ascribe to the past duration of our planet.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, those who were engaged in the cultivation of this department of knowledge, mistaking, with few exceptions, the true objects of philo