Cowens were among the first genuine English co-operators on record-co-operators in production as well as in distribution. Though Blaydon is a mere village, Mr. Holyoake, in his "History of Co-operation," declares that next to Rochdale it has the most remarkable store in England. It has grown from a house to a street. The library contains upwards of 1,500 volumes of new books. The profits for 1876 amounted

to £16,886. The society has an Education Fund of £400 per annum. When the Co-operative Congress met at Newcastle in 1873 Mr. Cowen, not then M.P., was elected president, and delivered an address, the remembrance of which still lives in co-operative circles.

Mr. Cowen's early education was received at a good local school, whence he proceeded to the University of Edinburgh, which then, by reason of the renown of its professors, enjoyed

something like European fame. Russell, Palmerston, Lansdowne, had been there before him. Christopher North still lectured, and Lord Macaulay represented the city in ParliaWith no professional object in view, young Cowen sought simply culture, and that he found to more purpose, perhaps, than it would have been possible for him to do elsewhere. He studied what subjects he pleased, preferring the time-honoured classics, became president of the University Debating Society, and entered heartily into the political and social life of the citizens. His chief extramural instructor was the Rev. Dr. John Ritchie-a really great man in a small community. Though a preacher, and a Scottish preacher too, he was above sophistry, an intrepid Radical, and a first-rate platform speaker. About this time also Mr. Cowen, while yet an Edinburgh student, made the acquaintance of Mazzini, who subsequently exercised over him an influence so remarkable. Young as he was Mr. Cowen had entered an indignant public protest against the infanious and, till it was proved, incredible violation of the illustrious exile's letters by Sir James Graham and the Post Office officials. Mazzini was interested in his youthful defender, thanked him by letter, and to Mr. Cowen were addressed the dying patriot's last written words.

On returning to Blaydon, Mr. Cowen engaged actively in his father's business of fire-proof brick and retort manufacture, the firm normally employing as many as a thousand men. At the Blaydon works there have been no strikes, for the very good reason that Mr. Cowen, though an employer of labour, has always been regarded as an intelligent exponent of trades union views-in short, as a trusted trades union leader. His support of the nine hours' movement was from first to last of a most decided character, and such as everywhere to evoke the warmest feelings of gratitude among workmen. His persistent efforts, too, to found, improve, and federate mechanics' institutes all over the populous Tyneside district ought not to be forgotten. For many years he personally discharged the duties of a teacher in one of these institutions, which owe so much of their success to his enthusiasm and talent as organizing secretary. Nor has Mr. Cowen been less active in the domain of pure politics, whether local or imperial. He is now President of the Northern Reform League-an organization which has been in existence in one form or another for more than twenty years. He was present at its inception, and acted as its first treasurer. In the Reform demonstrations of 1867 the League played an important part, calling out an array of supporters which the metropolis itself could hardly match. As a member of the Town Council Mr. Cowen on several occasions

declined the dignity of the mayoralty. This did not, however, prevent his brother councillors from getting a local Act of Parliament passed to enable them to make him an alderman when, by becoming a parliamentary representative, he had ceased to be a member of the municipal body.

To add to all these manifold activities, Mr. Cowen has for twenty years been the proprietor and political director of the Newcastle Chronicle, one of the most influential provincial journals in England, and certainly the most aggressively Radical. There is one other noticeable but well nigh forgotten publication with which the member for Newcastle was intimately connected which deserves to be recalled. In 1852 he purchased the small estate of Brantwood, Coniston, Lancashire, now the property of Mr. Ruskin, as a local habitation for the English Republic, which consisted of a series of Republican tracts in prose and verse, pitched in a yery lofty key. They were issued for five or six years, and Mr. Cowen, if I mistake not, united in his own person the somewhat incongruous, but in his case, by no means incompatible functions of poet laureate and treasurer of the Republic, over which floated a beautiful tricolour of blue, white, and green, designed by the artisteditor, Mr. W. J. Linton. In those days Mr. Cowen was in fact, I presume, what he now is only in theory, a staunch Republican.

Of Mr. Cowen's later public life nothing need be said, it being well known to everybody. He has shown himself more independent than the most independent political thinkers; but though some may doubt the tendency of his judgment, none can question the leanings of his sympathies.

[By a regrettable oversight, Sir Charles Dilke, whose portrait and character we gave last month, was stated to be President of the Board of Trade, instead of President of the Local Government Board.]

AN ACCOUNT OF GALL'S PHRENOLOGICAL THEORIES.

CHAPTER II.

OF PHYSIOLOGY IN GENERAL.

The anatomist is contented when he detects a distinction of parts which is constant and invariable. This he marks and proclaims to his scientific brethren, and they not unfrequently,

For these biographical particulars we are indebted to the Weekly Dispatch.

in grateful memory of his service, immortalize his name, by affixing it to the thing he first saw and made known (pons Varolii, membrana Schneideri, &c.). But it so happens, that the name of the discoverer is applied to the object, not because of the importance and value of the discovery, but, on the contrary, because for the present it is the mere detection of a thing, without the least insight into its functions and uses. It is impossible to look upon merely a picture of the brain, whether we take a section of it vertically, or survey its different layers horizontally, without being struck with the nice complexity of its organization, and with our entire ignorance of the design and purposes of that organization. This is more strikingly the case in examining the brain than in contemplating the other parts of the human frame. The ear and the eye also are subtly formed, but the principles of acoustics and vision are become objects of science-demonstrable sciencewhich furnish us with a clue in examining the organs of sight and hearing. The organs of digestion, nutrition, &c., are also more simple, and have a reference to less complicated processes. It is in the brain particularly that the physiologist follows the anatomist humbly at a distance, and for want of certain data and experience, is forced to indulge in general observation and vague analogy. At the same time, all who are really interested in the progress of science, and who make liberal allowance for the imperfection of knowledge, gratefully receive the facts which the anatomist makes known, even when there is no prospect of an immediately useful application of them. And they also indulgently listen to the speculations of the theoretical physiologist, in the conviction that it is only by the freest use of speculating and thinking powers, that the understanding can be disciplined to adjust and appreciate the facts brought before it. In the formation of science, the observation of individual fact, and the theory of general notions, setting out from opposite quarters, tend to the same point; and it is by their union that science itself is established.

Thus, for instance, in respect to the brain and its functions, which form the object of this work, it is in general universally understood to be the organ of thinking. But thinking is only a general term, including a vast variety of intellectual phenomena, and the brain is, as we have seen, a very complicated organ. Shall we then rest contented with the general assertion that the brain is the organ of mind? or shall we not rather, looking more narrowly into the structure of the brain, consider, apart, in their relation to mind, those of its parts which are anatomically shown to be distinct, in the same manner as the brain, considered as one simple substance, has formerly been

contemplated? We shall perhaps find that this more minute research is but a reasonable pursuit of the inquiry suggested by the first general observation. It is this which constitutes the subject of the following pages. Dr. Gall professes to have made this inquiry, and to have found that we ought not to content ourselves with considering the brain as the organ of thought, but as a congeneries of distinct organs, the existence of which alone renders that great variety and diversity of talents possible, which distinguish the various individuals of the same species hardly less strikingly from each other, than man himself is distinguished from every other species of beings we know.

But before we enter into this inquiry it may be proper to notice an opinion that has of late years become popular, concerning the causes of that infinite diversity of intellectual power and moral character, which prevail in the world, which would, if established, render an examination into the physical organization of man frivolous and useless. Helvetius has given currency to the notion, that men are born not only without character, but also absolutely indifferent to all character, without any tendency or disposition of any kind whatever. We all come into the world formed and disposed alike, and are purely the creatures of the circumstances in which we are placed. All the powers of the mind which have adorned but a few of our species, might (in spite of anything contained in the first frame and organization of the individual) have been the lot of every one of the thousands who daily come into and go out of the world, without leaving any other traces behind them, than in their progeny. This notion has been adopted by certain speculative men, from its imagined connection with the dogmata of materialism and philosophical necessity and in this country in particular, from its harmonising with the Hartleyan theory of association. But this notion could never gain credit with men in general; and for a reason stronger than all reasoning: We feel within us so decided a capacity for certain pursuits, and so utter a disability to follow others, that when we are told it might have been otherwise had we been otherwise placed in the world, the argument makes little impression; and we think we have

*It deserves remark, that the doctrine of Helvetius, though in fact it has been patronized by materialists, is much more easily reconcileable with the immaterial hypotheses. For we are more accustomed to think the soul, the immaterial supstance, to be simple and undividable, than matter, which we know only as a compound substance. And one would have imagined that materialists would have rather attributed to an original diversity of material organization, the actual varieties in the character of men. This observation was made to me by a German friend; I am not aware that it has occurred to any of our English writers.