whilst others persist in considering them as nothing more than modifications of intellectual energy, subject to the influence of education, of fashion, and of caprice. Surely, if the analytical investigations of pneumatologists had beer skilfully conducted, the science of mind, after the exertion of so much talent and industry, during nearly three thousand years, could not have been found encumbered with the numerous imperfections and deficiencies which still adhere to it. The astronomer has ascertained the true principles of the solar system, given names to the stars, and traced the paths of comets; but the metaphysician has not yet succeeded in even defining the limits of his inquiries or in opening up, by an intelligible division of his subject. a way in which his successors might advance, with any better prospect of success."

The summary here given of the attainments of "authors of eminence, even in the present improved state of philosophy," bears out our assertion that, up to the present day. the science of mind is unknown in universities.

Mr Stewart gives testimony to a similar effect, in the following passage, cited by him, with approval, from Monsieur de Bonald:

66

Diversity of doctrine has increased from age to age. with the number of masters, and with the progress of knowledge; and Europe, which at present possesses libraries filled with philosophical works, and which reckons up almost as many philosophers as writers; poor in the midst of so much riches, and uncertain, with the aid of all its guides, which road it should follow; Europe, the centre and focus of all the lights of the world, has yet its philoso phy only in expectation."

Is this state of mental philosophy, then, to continue for ever; or is human genius at length destined to rescue the most interesting of all sciences, from the miserable condition in which it has hitherto languished? The achievement has already been accomplished; and Dr Gall's discovery of the functions of the brain has, in our day, presented mankind with the true philosophy of mind. On one point you and we are not likely to differ, after what has been cited from the works of an eminent teacher, during fifty years, of the old philosophy; viz. that Phrenology can scarcely be more useless as a science of mind, than the doctrines which

are now taught under that name; while there are many chances of its being more valuable. But many of you will experience a natural veneration for established authority, and consider it your duty to study and embrace (so far as a phantom can be studied and embraced) the science of mind, such as it is presented to you by the talented and virtuous men who now fill the chairs of logic and moral philosophy, on the ground that, as they are the most profoundly learned, and most deeply skilled in that subject, they must be the best guides to what is useful and true. This inference, however, is overturned by the experience of all ages; and, out of the mouths of professors themselves, we could shew you, that you ought to exercise your own judgment in the pursuit of truth, and that your established teachers are the worst authorities possible on the subject of the merits of discoveries which go to overturn doctrines taught by themselves. We cited several examples to this effect in No. xxi. of this Journal, pp. 31-2; and the following extract from Professor Playfair's dissertation is so entirely applicable to the case of Phrenology, that it almost resembles a prophecy of the manner of its reception and diffusion :—

"When one considers the splendour of Newton's discoveries, the beauty, the simplicity, and grandeur of the system they unfolded, and the demonstrative evidence by which that system was supported, one could hardly doubt, that, to be received, it required only to be made known, and that the establishment of the Newtonian philosophy all over Europe would very quickly have followed the publication of it. In drawing this conclusion, however, we should make much too small an allowance for the influence of received opinion, and the resistance that mere habit is able, for a time, to oppose to the strongest evidence. The Cartesian system of vortices had many followers in all the countries of Europe, and particularly in France. In the universities of England, though the Aristotelian physics had made an obstinate resistance, they had been supplanted by the Cartesian, which became firmly established about the time when the foundation began to be sapped by the general progress of science, and particularly by the discoveries of Newton. For more than thirty years after the publication of those discoveries, the system of vortices kept its

B b

ground; and a translation from the French into Latin, of the Physics of Renault, a work entirely Cartesian, continued at Cambridge to be the text for philosophical instruction. About the year 1718 a new and more elegant translation of the same book was published by Dr Samuel Clarke, with the addition of notes, in which that profound and ingenious writer explained the views of Newton, on the principal objects of discussion, so that the notes contained virtually a refutation of the text; they did so, however, only virtually, all appearance of argument and controversy being carefully avoided. Whether this escaped the notice of the learned doctors or not is uncertain; but the new translation, from its better Latinity, and the name of the editor, was readily admitted to all the academical honours which the old one had enjoyed. Thus the stratagem of Dr Clarke completely succeeded; the tutor might prelect from the text, but the pupil would sometimes look into the notes, and error is never so sure of being exposed as when the truth is placed close to it, side to side, without any thing to alarm prejudice, or awaken from its lethargy the dread of innovation. Thus, therefore, the Newtonian philosophy first entered the university of Cambridge, under the protection of the Cartesian.

"If such were the obstacles to its progress that the new philosophy experienced in a country that was proud of having given birth to its author, we must expect it to advance very slowly indeed among foreign nations.

"In France, we find the first astronomers and mathematicians, such men as Cassini and Miraldi, quite unacquainted with it, and employed in calculating the paths of the comets they were observing on hypotheses the most unfounded and imaginary; long after Halley, following the principles of Newton, had computed tables, from which the motions of all the comets that ever had appeared, or ever could appear, might be easily deduced. Fontenelle, with great talents and enlarged views, and, as one may say, officially informed of the progress of science all over Europe, continued a Cartesian to the end of his days. Mairan, in his youth, was a zealous defender of the vortices, though he became afterwards one of the most strenuous supporters of the doctrine of gravitation."

Dr Chalmers also bears testimony, in the following elo

quent terms, to the reception of the new philosophy, by the learned and unlearned, on its announcement :

Authority," says he, "scowled upon it, and taste was disgusted by it, and fashion was ashamed of it, and all the beauteous speculation of former days was cruelly broken up by this new announcement of the better philosophy, and scattered like the fragments of an aërial vision, over which the past generations of the world had been slumbering their profound and their pleasing reverie."— Chalmers' Astronomical Discourses, Disc. II.

In presenting you with the views contained in this address, we have no desire to manifest the least disrespect to the excellent persons who now fill the chairs of logic and moral philosophy in the Scottish universities. Their situation presents obstacles almost unsurmountable to their adopting the new philosophy; not only because human nature is not equal to the task of stripping itself, at a mature age, of its old opinions, and setting out in quest of new no tions, but because numberless theories are propounded in all sciences, which, after enjoying a brief éclat, are proved to be unfounded; and established professors ought not to be moved by every wind of doctrine, but to preserve steadiness and consistency in their views, as essential at once to commanding respect, and proving useful to their students. Every sensible person, therefore, who is acquainted with human nature, will admit that venerable teachers ought to be allowed to maintain, or at least may be pardoned for maintaining, the doctrines which they embraced in the maturity of their judgment, undisturbed by discoveries made by younger men, which would totally subvert their systems. They have an equitable title to be allowed the liferent possession of their errors, while these constitute their only stock; and, just as government maintains sinecure or useless offices until the decease of those who have been fairly appointed to them, and then abolishes them for so would we allow established professors to continue during life to teach the doctrines which they first embraced, and leave these slowly to die out with themselves. The only concession which can be demanded of these teachers is, that they shall not obstruct the inquiries of the youth committed to their charge into discoveries which they themselves may be excused from embracing. By doing so

ever,

they perpetuate the reign of error; because it is only after the whole generation who had attained to maturity when a discovery was made have been removed from the scene by death, and been succeeded by younger men whose minds were open to conviction, that new doctrines become established; and every year of delay on the part of the young to investigate is one added to the predominance of error. Your imperative duty, therefore, is to inquire. Your teachers have every apology to offer for not studying and embracing novelties in science; nay, if they even deery and oppose them, their conduct, although not justifiable, may still be excused. But with you no such apologies exist. Your minds are young, vigorous, and full of enterprise, and are not preoccupied by error; you will soon constitute the men of society; and to you will the blame be justly ascribed, if another generation shall be compelled to endure the evils of the mystic speculations under which you now suffer, and to grow up in ignorance of the most important, because the most practical, doctrine of philosophy that ever was presented to the human understanding.

SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHARACTER OF CROMWELL, AS DELINEATED IN THE NOVEL OF WOODSTOCK.*

THE picture of Cromwell in Woodstock is strictly historical, that is, in perfect accordance with what is known of Cromwell's character; and likewise strictly phrenological. There is a certain force and weight in some characters-a moral momentum, to which ordinary minds, by a law of their nature, yield as necessarily as a less gives way to a greater physical resistance. Without the slightest appeal to physical force," they overwhelm and take possession of feebler minds," says Mr Combe, "impressing them irresistibly with a feeling of gigantic power." Men who, in the hour of political convulsion, rise from obscurity to supreme power; adventurers who have or might have seated themselves on thrones, the Cromwells and the Napoleons, have always borne about them this commanding inBy James Simpson.-Vol. iii. No. 11, p. 482, + Vide System, 3d edition, p. 104.