and another negatively, electrified. There are particular times when certain organs require a larger share of sensorial power than at others, and when material injury is done if any violation is offered to this necessary law. After eating, for instance, it is perfectly well ascertained that digestion never proceeds so well as when we give ease to the brain, and do not employ it in study; while the digestive process is impaired by working the brain immediately after taking food. To what are these circumstances to be attributed, but to the law that when food is thrown upon the stomach this viscus digests better if it be supplied from some other source with additional nervous energy? For the same reason, exercise of any kind is bad shortly after eating, as the sensorial power not only of the brain but of the muscles is at work, and so much is thus lost to the parts concerned in digestion. These are not solitary facts: a hundred more might be brought in support of the point which is here contended for.

Circumstances, indeed, would rather induce us to infer, not only that increased assimilation in the brain is not the cause of sleep, but that the assimilative process is never so feeble in that viscus as when its functions are locked up in slumber. In this respect the brain differs from other organs; but the analogy between it and them is not, on that account, less complete, in so far as in all cases an organ is most liberally supplied with the cir culating fluid when the greatest efforts are demanded from it. The brain works in the waking state, and is then most highly vascularized-the stomach and liver labour hardest while we are asleep, and are consequently at that time most copiously excited with the stimulating nutriment of the circulation.

Active-minded, deep-thinking, or care-worn men have often, perhaps generally, a bad digestion. The stomach does not act well even when the appetite (a rare case) is unimpaired; and they are in the habit of using medicines to stimulate the torpid action of the alimentary canal. They sleep ill-perhaps they lie half of the night before slumber visits their eyelids-perhaps the other halt is spent in dreams. Men of dull, easy, contented minds, are in every respect the reverse. They eat like horses, and think of nothing but the next meal. At night they lay their stupid heavy heads upon the pillow, and instantly fall into a profound slumber-a slumber unbroken even by the slightest glimpse of a dream. Why are not these men alike? Why does not the pale, thin, care-worn, deep thinker sleep as soundly as the sluggish obtuse glutton? Why does his stomach not perform its functions as kindly, and digest the food with the same ready alacrity? The cause is obvious. The brain of the first absorbs so much of the nervous energy of the stomach as not only to keep his mind active when it ought to

The

be reposing, but to prevent the stomach from performing its functions with due vigour and thus digestion suffers. second thinks not at all. The sensorial power which kept his brain awake is transferred by an easy process to the stomach, which, reinforced in this manner, acts vigorously, and enables him to fatten upon its labours. The two organs are here re-acting upon each other;-in the one case the brain starving the stomach, in the other the stomach starving the brain, and giving a practical vindication of the truth of the Shakspearian aphorism, that "fat paunches make lean pates."

The endless phenomena of dreams, " for ever varying-never the same," are easily and beautifully explained by means of the sensorial power. Partial assimilation (by which means alone can they be accounted for, according to the doctrine of Mr Carmichael) is a phenomenon unknown to nature in a state of health. We have no reason to suppose that particles are deposited in one part and not in another at the same time-none that such an operation is at work in this portion of the brain and not in that, its immediate neighbour. Assimilation is a slow process, and cannot keep pace with the airy and fleeting character of visions, or account for their evanescent lights and shades. The nervous energy coming vividly into play in one organ while it is suspended in another, accounts readily and felicitously for dreams-their incongruities, rapid transitions, and other odd and miscellaneous features.

I shall conclude by mentioning one physiological fact, which, of itself, and without reference to any of the foregoing arguments, strikes with fatal effect at the theory of Mr Carmichael. The drowsiness that takes place shortly after eating, seldom lasts above an hour or two. This, Mr C. would say, arises from the brain being oppressed by the deposit within it of new particles, which must necessarily be derived from the food lately taken. Here we must suppose that assimilation commences immediately. Now, it is an admitted fact, that the preliminary step of chylification does not begin till the food quits the stomach and passes into the duodenum, and that about three hours generally elapse before this transfer is effected. As soon as the mass is fairly out of the stomach and lodged in the intestines, the lacteal vessels begin to act upon it, absorbing its nutriment in the form of chyle, and sending it, by means of the thoracic duct, into the left subclavian vein. The chyle here enters into combination with the blood, and it is from this general mass that the particles which constitute the substance of the body are formed. The formation of these is what is called assimilationa process which Mr C.'s theory leads us to infer commences immediately, and is brought to a conclusion before the food has really got out of the stomach, or the preparatory step of chyli

fication begun. If a man, after eating, feels drowsy in consequence of his brain being compressed by the deposit of new particles of matter, this deposit and the accompanying drowsiness must be simultaneous, whereas we find that the latter precedes the former by several hours. How much more simple and easy is it to suppose that the nervous energy which keeps the brain awake is transferred to the stomach, and that so soon as the purposes of the latter are served, it returns to the brain, which it puts into a state of activity, and thus dispels the tendency to sleep.

There are some other points in Mr C.'s essay which I think could also be made the subject of criticism; but the principal positions having been taken up, it is perhaps not necessary to dwell on minor details. I shall therefore conclude with expressing the great pleasure I have had in perusing that gentleman's pa per, which is written not only with great ability, but in a spirit of fairness, candour, and good feeling, that do him the greatest credit. ROBERT MACNISH.

I SHOULD not trouble you with the following remarks, but am bound to do so in common justice to myself and others. In your Journal for June, my work on Mental Culture was reviewed, and other phrenologists beside myself consider the article characterised by a want of fairness and candour. I was at Reading at the time, and felt annoyed at the direct implication of my moral character, viz. " that I had misstated facts and doctrines," and also substituted Spurzheim's ideas for my own, charges which were not substantiated by a single proof. Hence it was that I penned the angry epistle which appeared in the Berkshire Chronicle; and I will admit, that, like all such warm productions, my language and assertions were too intemperate and, in some measure, call for an apology on my part to Mr Combe and Mr Simpson, particularly as I attributed the obnoxious article to either the one or the other of these gentle

men.

What I said concerning the Constitution of Man, were merely reiterations of the statements of others; and, therefore, if I have unwittingly done an injustice to Mr Combe, I am very sorry for it. Dr Spurzheim complained to me himself, and afterwards said to me, (in a letter which I still retain,)" that Mr Combe still insisted on publishing on the Natural Laws," &c. Nevertheless, I have myself always preferred the Constitution of Man to the Natural Laws, believing the former to be more generally useful, the diction and style being most popular, and most likely to obtain converts. The same might be said of Mr Simpson's "Necessity for Popular Education," when compared with other works on Phrenology. But does this concession alter the truth that, in both these instances, the Phrenology of Gall and Spurzheim, and the philosophical deductions of the latter, are just as much used by these authors, and with the same latitude, as I have done in my work on Mental Culture? An honest and impartial judge could not pronounce a different opi

nion.

My reviewer charges me with giving Spurzheim's ideas, particularly in the practical part of the work. This is indeed a greater compliment than he intended it should be, and a higher panegyric on Phrenology than he contemplated! for I had never read either Spurzheim's Education or his Philosophical Principles, although I attended his lectures, wherein he treats on both these subjects. Let me not be misunderstood. In studying Phrenology, I adopted the plan of reading men and their actions, (after I made myself acquainted with its philosophy,) and when I proposed writing on Education, I purposely avoided reading works upon the subject, believing, as I did then and do now, that as Phrenology furnishes true data for a system of mental philosophy, by applying its principles, either analytically or systematically, no one could err. My work was delayed more than a year after it was sent to the press, owing to my professional engagements, and many domestic calamities; and it was not until after it had been nearly printed, that I read works on education. I subsequently read Rousseau's Emile, &c., Helvetius, Mrs Moore, &c. &c., and was often surprised, that in these works I found many of the ideas which I had prized most had been already published by these authors.

In the reply of my reviewer in the Berkshire Chronicle, he endeavoured to substantiate the charges of misstating facts, &c., by saying "that Pizarro did not conquer Montezuma, and that the Phrenological Society had not a single Mexican skull," and similar specimens of hypercriticism; and for these venial errors he would have allowed the phrenological public to believe that I purposely mutilated truth, and had given garbled and vitiated principles for phrenological doctrines. Again, this candid scribe

is quite unmerciful, because I said, when speaking of the brain, that it had diversified faculties, instead of saying diversified organs, &c. This may suit the dignified precision of a reviewer who splits hairs, but it does not invalidate the practical importance of the views I have advocated. One thing I have to thank this gentleman for,-that he has exculpated Messrs Combe and Simpson, and has said that the former never said or wrote concerning me but in kindness. It is a great error to be betrayed into anger, and this I have been guilty of; but in my cooler moments I have always felt gratitude to Mr Combe for his kind and epistolary communications; and Dr Arnot assured me that Mr Simpson spoke of me with great kindness. To both gentlemen I owe, then, my best thanks; but if either of them had power to alter or modify articles which appear in the Journal, I might have expected that they would have rendered me something more like justice than I experienced from the pen of the reviewer. Allow me to ask, Sir, as an honourable judge, to whom I submit my cause, that supposing the reviewer's charges against me to be proved, that I have given Spurzheim's ideas, without rendering to him what was his due, in what have I differed from Mr. Simpson? May not both of us have been actuated by the same, motives? May we not have been both induced to render Phrenology more in accordance with popular, language? And if in my case there is moral delinquency, surely the same rod should castigate both. In my Mental Culture I acknowledge the importance of Phrenology, and assert that no correct system of education can be generally acted upon, until its metaphysical views of man are universally adopted; and the whole tenor of the work is an attempt to demonstrate these assertions. In Mr Simpson's work, which I read with pleasure, Phrenology is only incidentally mentioned in connexion with the Constitution of Man, although this gentleman has given the whole of the philosophy of the mental faculties. It is most true that he has said, "the reader who is familiar with works on education, will scarcely discover a thought which in substance he has not met before," &c., yet this is not rendering unto Casar what is Casar's due. For most ideas have been given or expressed in some form by others, could we become acquainted with the thoughts of men when contemplating subjects we may be treating of; and the recent writer can only represent them in new

• I very much regret, after what has occurred, that I did not publish, as I had proposed, an historical preface, because in it I had done ample justice to Gall and Spurzheim, and all subsequent writers. A friend who read the MS. said, "Why so publish the history of your data, when you ask the public to admit them without proof, &c. ;" and he added, "If you still persist in doing so, the causual person will think the work a treatise on Phrenology, and will feel no interest in perusing it." As a witness to this statement, I may ap peal to my respected friend Urquhart of Liverpool, to whom I shewed the article when in that town in December last.