Of the truth and justness of this simple view, the instantaneous slumber which sometimes follows a dose of morphia is at once an illustration, a proof, and almost a demonstration!:

Mr Macnish, in his concludingi paragraph, observes, that there are other points in my essay which he thinks could also be made the subject of criticism. I do not controvert the supposition; but perhaps, on a reference to my original essay, he would find many, if not all, of these points already disposed of. I have not yet been assailed by an objection that I found toa truculent or sturdy to encounter. So far my hypothesis wears the semblance of truth. It is not of sufficient moment to take any farther trouble with it. That it should be admitted by future physiologists as a conjecture, not to be rejected as unsupported and irrational, but one which may be considered as founded in nature and reason, explaining every circumstance and removing every difficulty connected with the subject, is the highest point of ambition to which I can aspire. To bring it to the test of experiment, and demonstrate it to be an incontrovertible fact, is not within the scope of any investigation which I know how to institute... I do not see, even if it were established, that it could lead to any higher result than the gratification of the careless curiosity of a few, upon a phenomenon about which a few only are curious; or if to a higher, it may perhaps convey the important instruction that we ought not to be satisfied with a shadow when we can grasp at the substance, nor with words when we may possibly attain to things. But even so I have done as much as the matter will justify. Other objections may be started; but, if my theory be true, they will be as easily dissipated as their predecessors. But I should be ashamed again to take the field, even in the cause of truth, where the truth at issue is of such puny import

ance.

As this is the last time I shall approach the public on the subject, I may be pardoned if I still linger to obtrude a short and comprehensive view of my whole hypothesis, as I am at present disposed to maintain it.

The absorbents and secerning vessels never remit their offices -those carrying off the old particles from every part of the frame, and these depositing new ones in their place; the absorbents being most busy with the muscular fibres which are most exercised by labour, or the nervous fibres most exercised by the operations of sensation, volition, and thought. Yet these fibres, so exercised, are always the strongest and most powerful of their kind in the frame: the secerning vessels must, therefore, be equally busy in restoring new particles in the

place of the old, or, during certain intervals, rather more busy, because more are restored than are taken away, as is proved by the increase of size, proportioned to the occasional or habitual exercise of the parts. Yet it is evident that it is not during the moments of exercise that the great mass of new matter is deposited, otherwise the muscular and nervous fibres in question would go on thickening and strengthening the longer the exercise of labour and thought was continued; and this, we know, is contrary to fact; fatigue ensues, and rest is necessary, and during that rest it is probable that the secerning vessels, though always depositing new particles, deposit much more, or the absorbents remove much less, than at other times. By rest, I mean a mere cessation from labour; and such rest is not sleep. The large mass of new particles deposited on the muscles cannot affect their tough and insensible fibres by any striking phenomenon; but when such a mass is deposited on the delicate, tender, and sensible structure of the brain and nerves, how different must be the effect. If small in quantity, and while these organs are in a state of active energy, it may be hurried unobserved into the existing activity of the living matter; but if large in quantity, and while these organs are resting from their labours, can it be that the extraneous and unassimilated mass does not press its increasing weight on their fragile machinery, and produce an EFFECT something like the pressure of the overswollen blood vessels, but natural, necessary, and healthful-the PARALYSIS, not of apoplexy, but of SLEEP?

While the incumbent mass thus paralyses the encephalon, the body is powerless; there is no voluntary motion, no perception, no thought, no dream. But when the assimilation is complete in any one of the organs of the mind, then thoughts arise; but there is no perception until the assimilation is also complete in one or more of the organs of the senses; until then the simple current of our thoughts constitutes an ordinary dream.

If the nerves of motion continue invested in a newly deposited mass of nervous matter, while the mind anxiously desires and essays in vain to move the limbs this is nightmare. If these nerves are extricated from their trammels, and those desires and efforts of the mind still continue-if they command and the nerves obey-this is somnambulism. But these dreams, whether ordinary and natural, or attended with the horrors of nightmare or the perils of somnambulism, vanish as our senses admit the impressions of the external world. We are then awake; but while thus awake, if the nerves of motion are still asleep if their trammels still continue upon them-this is the daymare, so feelingly described by Mr Macnish. If through any idiosyncrasy the process of assimilation were never sufficiently considerable to paralyze, by the mass of new particles, the brain and nerves of sense, the individual would exist as one that never slept, even though his nervous system should obtain in some degree those blessings which are the peculiar concomitants of sleep, a sufficiency of nourishment and a renovation of vigour. If, through an opposite idiosyncrasy, the deposit of new particles should be so superabundant and incessant as to continue the paralysis beyond, the usual and natural period of slumber, this state would present the rare and hitherto mysterious phenomena of protracted sleep, sometimes, terminating even in death, as in the case of Elizabeth Perkins, detailed by Mr Macnish. These two opposite idiosyncrasies seem to arise from opposite diseases of the secerning vessels of the head, one promoting to excess, and the other in an equal degree preventing, the effusion of the due quantity of nervous matter requisite for the healthy and vigorous state of the nervous system.

If it should be asked, How can the same cause operate in different ways? How can the assimilating process at one time cause sleep, and at another not cause it? How can it, though unremitting in activity, at one time paralyze the brain and nerves, and at another rather enliven and invigorate them?These questions are difficult, and the more difficult because in the material world we can find no object wherewith to compare and illustrate the phenomena of mind. The element of fire must suffice on the present occasion, where no better ligament of analogy between things so different can be had:

"Nutritur ventis, ventis extinguitur ignis;
Levis alit flammas, grandior aura necat."

If a fire burns clearly, brightly, and fiercely, still it requires a constant supply of fuel to keep up its intensity, and replace the solid particles expended in combustion. A small quantity frequently added, so far from paralyzing, increases the activity of the fire; but when that activity is exhausted, when the very energy of the flames, like the exertion of a powerful mind, has wasted away the substance on which it fed, and these flames sink enfeebled, and the fire is diminished and dull, if you heap over it a heavy mass of fuel, the flames are smothered, the activity ceases, the element sleeps. Hours are required to extend the vivifying influence to the new matter; at length the increasing warmth pervades the whole mass, the assimilation is complete, and the smallest incitement stirs up again all the energies of the furnace. If too little aliment be supplied to the glowing mass, it will burn out, like an over-worked brain in similar circumstances; while too great a weight of fuel cast on the exhausted hearth overwhelms the expiring embers, and the result is the slumber of death, not of sleep.

DUBLIN, 1834.

A. C.

CASTS OF THE HEADS OF TWO SWEDISH LAPLANDERS, AND OF THE SKULL OF A CRIMINAL, Presented to the Phrenological Society by Mr G. M. SCHWARTZ of Stockholm.

IN September 1833, the above mentioned casts were trans mitted by Mr Schwartz to Edinburgh, but they were accom panied by no information as to the names and characters of the individuals. The box, having been delivered to Mito Robert Cox, Conservator of the Phrenological Society's Museum, he immediately wrote to Mr Schwartz in the following terms

66

11

I have had the honour to receive the casts transmitted by you from Stockholm for the Phrenological Society of this city, ..... May I beg the favour of a letter from you, containing particulars regarding the dispositions and history of the individuals whose heads the casts represent? This will add very much to their value. The two heads, I conjecture, are those of Laplanders, and the skull that of a criminal. The former exhibit a lymphatic temperament, and the individuals seem to have a strong endowment of Secretiveness. The person of whose skull you have sent a cast, must have been, if not a malefactor, at all events a selfish, irritable, revengeful, cruel, headstrong, quarrelsome, vain, unprincipled, coarse, shallow-minded character. If his constitution was active, he must have been very restless and troublesome. I shall be anxious to receive an account of him. His only good quality is affection for children, and also, though in a less degree, for friends. He would be tyrannical, proud, intractable, and overbearing; without philanthropy, profundity of intellect, or poetical or musical talent. Be so kind as to say whether these inferences from the cast are correct."

t.

To this letter Mr Schwartz returned an answer, dated 24th September 1833, of which the following is a translation :"SIR, The casts which I had last the honour of forwarding to you for the Phrenological Society of Edinburgh, are, in the first place, of the heads of two Laplanders-a lad of 18 years, and a girl of 28. On the cast of the latter will be observed the mark of a feather, which was put into her mouth because she was enrhumée. They were cousins, and I have been informed that the boy resembled his mother, and the girl her father. Of their characters I have been unable to obtain any account; and I can say nothing myself, except that the girl appeared to be very

rational in her conduct, but the young man had less judgment. Both, in perfect accordance with the the configuration of their heads, were very reserved in their manner (tres retenus dans leur manière d'être), and doubtless partook of the general character of the Laplanders, which is well known. I had hardly time to take the casts; and previously, in order to render the configuration of the heads more visible, made both the girl and the lad cut off as much of their hair as they would part with. It was of equal length round the head of the latter, as worn by the Laplanders

t

"The third cast is that of a criminal who died in one of the prisons of Stockholm, and whose body was, according to custom, dissected at the Surgical School, from which the skull was lent me by one of the professors in 1804. These are all the particulars with which I am acquainted. I have preserved the cast on account of its conformation, which is the most unfavourable that I have ever seen of a human head belonging to a civilized country in the north of Europe; and it is in this view that I thought it worthy of a place in the Society's collection.

" I shall undertake in a few days a voyage of brief duration to London, and regret much that the advanced stage of the season will not permit me to visit Edinburgh likewise, to inspect the collection of the Phrenological Society, and become acquainted with Mr Combe. His moral work, The Constitution of Man,' is now translated into Swedish, and will be printed on my return, under the title of The Doctrine of Happiness on Earth.

"Accept, Sir, the assurance of the consideration with which I have the honour to be," &c.

"

(Signed) "G. M. SCHWARTZ."

We have looked into Malte-Brun's Universal Geography for "the general character of the Laplanders," to which Mr Schwartz refers; and have been gratified by finding a striking description of the manifestations of very powerful Secretive

That organ is very large, not only in the two heads noticed above, but also in the skull of another Swedish Laplander, a cast of which was presented by Mr Schwartz to the Society in 1832. The entire lateral regions, indeed, are very much developed in all the three; indicating Acquisitiveness, Destructiveness, and Cautiousness, to be also large *. Hence the whole present a globular appearance. The Laplanders, says MalteBrun, " are at once passionate and timid; their choler may be easily excited, but their fear prompts them to dissemble or sup