studies to excite feeling or stir up passion. The tenor of their lives is generally tranquil. Hence the aggregate age of twenty of them, taken promiscuously, has been found to amount to 1504 years, giving to each the average of seventy-five.

"Poets, on the contrary, are proverbially an irritabile genus,' -men of strong and easily excited feelings, and a burning imagination. Their productions, moreover, being works of passion, their minds must be in tumult during their composition. From these causes, the aggregate age of twenty distinguished poets has been ascertained to be 1144 years, giving to each an average of fifty-seven-a very striking balance in favour of a mind free from passion!"—P. 84.

Much curious matter follows on the tendency of the embroilment of party politics and religious differences to over-excite the brain, and produce insanity, and also dyspepsia or indigestion, which, says Dr Caldwell, is more nearly allied to insanity than is commonly supposed. "So true is this," he adds, " that the one is not unfrequently converted into the other, and often alternates with it. The lunatic is usually a dyspeptic during his lucid intervals; and complaints which begin in some form of gastric derangement, turn, in many instances, to madness. Nor is this all. In families, where mental derangement is hereditary, the members who escape that complaint are more than usually obnoxious to dyspepsia. It may be added, that dyspeptics and lunatics are relieved by the same modes of treatment, and that their maladies are induced, for the most part, by the same causes."-P. 87. The passions of grief, jealousy, anger, &c. injure the digestion. Dyspepsia is very frequently cured, when curable, by abandoning care and business, and giving rest to the brain. This is the chief reason why watering-places so often succeed. The agitations of wealth-getting and commercial speculation, have the same effect as political and religious controversy, in over-exciting the brain. All these he looks upon as the causes of the inordinate sum of insanity and dyspepsia which prevails in the United States. We recommend to the perusal of parents the author's description of the frightful consequences of the solitary abuse of Amativeness, which runs like a contagion through schools, often destroying the individuals, and, at the least, seriously injuring the race. Even in Britain, this baneful practice prevails to an extent which we should have thought incredible, had not the clearest evidence of the fact been within our knowledge. We must also refer to the volume for the au thor's judicious observations upon dress, in which he exposes the mischiefs arising from the tightened corsets of the ladies; a subject fortunately now so well understood, as to have nearly banished the practice from rational society. Dr Caldwell thus concludes his lecture :—

"Finally, One of the leading benefits to be bestowed on our race, by Physical Education judiciously practised and carried to the requisite extent, is the production and preservation of a well-adjusted balance, not only between the different portions of the brain, but of the whole body. Few persons, if any at all, bring into life with them a system perfectly balanced in all its parts. Some organs predominate in size and strength, while others are comparatively small and feeble. This is a tendency to disease, and can be removed or amended only by competent training. Let it never be forgotten, that the proper exercise of a part, and that alone, increases both its bulk and power, and, at the same time, diminishes any excess of sensitiveness it may possess. And this is precisely what small and feeble parts require, to place them on a par with others, and secure their health. To illustrate my meaning, and shew it to be true:

"Is the chest of a boy narrow, and are his lungs weak and irritable? Let those parts be habitually exercised, according to the directions already given, and such a change may be produced in him, as will give an equipoise to his body, and prevent disease. His chest and lungs may be enlarged not a little, and as weil secured from complaints as his other organs. From the free and constant exercise which their calling gives to their arms, shoulders, and thoracic walls and viscera, London boatmen have large chests, and are strangers to consumption. The loud and habitual call, moreover, by which they announce their business and solicit employment, aids in the development and strengthening of their lungs. From these causes, though perpetually exposed to the damp and chilling air of the Thames, they rarely experience any form of pectoral disease.

"Of every small and feeble part of the system the same is true. A judicious scheme of training will enlarge and strengthen it. But hereditary predisposition to disease is nothing else than the want of an equipoise between all the different portions of the body. Some organs, being comparatively weak and sensitive, are preternaturally prone to actual derangement. By well directed exercise, therefore, continued through successive generations, may every predisposition of the kind be eradicated.

"Such is the best outline of my views of Physical Education, that my other engagements have allowed me to prepare. Sensible of its imperfections, but unable at present to remove or lessen them, I must throw it, for acceptance, on the indulgence of those to whom it has been presented."-Pp. 132, 133.

If we have a stricture to offer on so excellent a treatise, it is this-that in treating of the physical education of the brain, Dr Caldwell departs from the restrictions he previously imposed on himself, and trenches too much upon what, distinctively speaking, constitutes moral and intellectual education. It is not a

question of substantial truth,—for he is right in affirming that even intellectual and moral education are to a great extent material; but it is an important question of classification, and we take it there would be more convenience in limiting physical education, directly applied, to all the other corporeal systems but the brain.

ARTICLE II.

OWENISM AND PHRENOLOGY.

IN March last, at the conclusion of one of Mr J. D. Holm's lectures on Phrenology, delivered in his rooms, No. 12 North Crescent, Bedford Square, London, Mr Robert Owen read to the audience certain remarks on the influence of external circumstances in forming the human character, and gave it as his opinion that phrenologists ascribe too much efficacy to innate qualities, and too little to external circumstances. The substance of these remarks, and a reply by Mr Holm, appeared in the 26th number (25th April 1835) of "The New Moral World," a periodical conducted by Mr Owen. We subjoin, without comment, what is said on both sides: readers who desire to pursue the subject farther, are referred to a phrenological analysis of Mr Owen's views in the first volume of this Journal, p. 218. "The New Moral World" contains also two dialogues on the same subject, but the whole substance of the controversy appears to us to be sufficiently embodied in what is here subjoined.

REMARKS BY MR OWEN.

Mr Holm has this week given a more full answer than he did last week to the observations which were made in our previous dialogues, in which Phrenology was very partially discussed. The subject is one of deep interest, second to none, perhaps, except the "science of the influence of external circumstances over the formation of the human character."

Upon these subjects it may be useful to submit to our readers the following observations, that an accurate knowledge of these two parts of the same science may be elicited. Our remarks are, of course, open to refutation, if they can be proved to be

erroneous.

Since the year 1812 I have stated, in various publications which may be referred to, that man is a compound being, formed in part at birth by that power which gives existence to all organized beings; but, in a more essential part, by the influence

which external circumstances make upon the infant, from the hour of its birth to the end of its life.

Now this has been the solid foundation on which the system of the New Moral World has been raised. It was this view of the subject that created the first ideas from which the system originated. It was this view of the subject that induced me to make the great and singularly successful experiment for so many years at New Lanark. It was this view of the subject which produced the motives which originated the first Infant School, the foundations of which were laid in 1812, and which, before the second was established in Westminster by Lord Brougham, the late Henry Hase, cashier of the Bank of England, and others of my friends, had attained so much perfection as to be the wonder, astonishment, and unlimited praise of the most intelligent of all classes of natives and foreigners; indeed of all educated or uneducated persons who visited that establishment, except the bigot, the fanatic, or the grossly superstitious, who could not approve of any measure, however beneficial in practice, that did not originate or fall in with their own sectarian notions, or erroneous, inexperienced, and confined views. of human nature.

The difference of opinion between Mr Holm and other phrenologists and myself, arises from one party attributing more in the formation of the human character to the original faculties of human nature, and less to the influence of circumstances; while the other places more power in the external circumstances as they may, and no doubt soon will, be applied, and less to the original germ of the natural organs of mankind. The difference is only in degree; but this, for practice, is a most important difference.

It is to me, however, satisfactory to observe, that the most intelligent and experienced among the phrenologists have gradually given more and more importance to the power of external circumstances over the natural faculties and organs of human nature, and as they advance in knowledge they will discover the necessity for allowing much more to the almost overwhelming influence of external circumstances over all the propensities, faculties, powers, and feelings of all human kind.

Although the blind, accidental, and, as they appear, random circumstances which existed or have arisen, in various times, in various countries, and which now exist in all countries, have had the influence to form various national and tribinal characters most opposite to each other, in language, religion, laws, dispositions, habits, manners, and conduct; yet the full power which external circumstances may be made to possess, through a knowledge of the science of circumstances over human nature, no one among phrenologists appears yet to have been permitted to acquire the knowledge duly to appreciate.

The facts on this subject, without regard to religious or phrenological prejudices, appear to be these:

1st, That human nature has been formed to possess definite organs of body and mind, and that these constitute human nature, and form the component parts of every sane and sound individual; and that the only difference between one individual and another is in the greater or less amount of power, in quantity and quality, of these component parts.

2d, That these organs, consisting of physical propensities, intellectual faculties, and moral feelings, being thus differently compounded in each individual, have been formed capable of receiving impressions from external circumstances, and to be influenced by them to an extent to which no one yet knows how to assign limits.

3d, That the influence of these external circumstances may be made to act very powerfully on the germ or seed of every organ, if not upon the quality of the germ or seed itself; and in such a manner as materially to influence the quantity and quality, during their growth, of all these organs until they arrive at maturity, and, to a considerable degree, even during the life of every individual.

4th, In this manner external circumstances may be now devised and arranged by society, for which it has the most ample means at its control, to train every infant, not diseased in its physical or mental organic powers, to acquire any language, a belief in any religion, to have any dispositions, habits, and manners, and to pursue any previously-decided-upon conduct that society may deem the best to have put into practice. But society cannot give genius in any particular art or science, except the natural organ of such art or science shall be favourable for its development; although by an early and steady cultivation of these organs, under the constant direction of superior instructors, much may be done with all, except the organ should be more than ordinarily deficient.

5th, The world has been considerably improved in knowledge of the human organs and faculties by the phrenologists, and the study of Phrenology should be cultivated by every one who desires to obtain more accurate information of human and of animal nature generally; and it would be now useful to unite the friends of Phrenology, and of the science of the influence of external circumstances, into a friendly association, to promote the improvement of human beings previous to and after their birth; and to enable the members of both, thus united, to oppose successfully the remaining ignorance and prejudices of the present age upon these subjects.

6th, That the full happiness of human nature is not to be attained until all the organs which constitute human nature shall be cultivated in each individual at the proper period of life, and