ployed a large catalogue of mental food, suited to the different states of the mental organ.

We shall close our already copious extracts with the remarks on one of the moral means of treatment, which has been the subject of considerable controversy, namely, religious worship and instruction. Much has been said indiscriminately both in favour and condemnatory of the employment of this means; the following observations, however, place the matter in its true light :-" Upon certain forms of mental disease, religious teaching or ceremonies would act as a direct irritant; upon others they would fall powerless; upon a third class, such ministrations would operate as any other novel scene or occupation which assisted in relieving the monotony of their mode of life; while upon a fourth, their influence would be altogether benign, affording a legitimate gratification to healthy feelings, directing the mind from depressing, or agitating, to soothing associations, and tending to inspire with brighter and nobler hopes, which disease can neither darken nor quench, which will beam in on the troubled spirit amidst its gloomiest delusions, as clear and certain points of guidance, like shore-lights to the storm-bound sailor. Upon the discrimination of the patients to whom religious instruction is adapted, the whole question of its utility rests. To prescribe it as applicable to all cases, would be as wise as to seek for the elixir vita; and to exclude it because sometimes injurious, betrays a deplorable ignorance of the constitution and the wants of the human mind. I may, with all reverence, compare the employment to that of any other medicine. It must be regulated by the idiosyncrasies of the patients, by the symptoms, the duration and the complications of the disease. No man, entertaining this view, will establish public worship as an hospital routine duty, in which all must or may participate. It should be reserved for the few who can understand its meaning, who may be quieted by its solemnity, cheered by the prospects which it affords, attracted by the beauty of the service, or roused by the recollections which it calls up the condition of each of these classes having been previously examined and tested as to the extent to which such impressions may be borne, and may prove beneficial. It will be observed, that many are here proposed to be admitted to these rites, who cannot be expected to regard them, or be influenced by them as religious duty. The imaginative, the musical, the lethargic lunatic, are thus all included, because pleasure would be communicated, and a new and healthy direction may be given to their thoughts by the aspect and accessory circumstances of the assembly, independently altogether of its sacred character. Many exceptions, however, must be made, and the pleasure derivable must not be chosen as the ground of admission. Those, in fact, who most ardently desire to join

such meetings, and who pant for spiritual communion, are often those who are least fitted for it. They doubt or despair of their salvation, or their whole soul is in wild exultation at the prospect of the bliss which awaits them: or they have seen visions, or they prostrate every power before the conviction that they are incarnations of Deity, or of the angelic host. In such states as these, any act connected with religion must generally contribute to promote and perpetuate the activity of the diseased feeling. I say, generally, for where the reason remains intact, and the dominant emotions are terror, despondency, penitence for imaginary crimes, and so forth, a clear exposition of the promises of Christianity made to the understanding, in a clear and conciliating manner, sometimes acts as if miraculously. Such cases must be selected, and not experimented on. Under such circumstances, private religious instruction would be infinitely preferable to any public devotional service. It is somewhat singular, that this mode of conveying powerful impressions is scarcely at all resorted to in our establishments. Apart from all other considerations, it enables the clergyman to study and probe the wound he desires to heal, to know the dispositions he has to contend with, and to frame his exhortations, and to regulate his intercourse accordingly. In a promiscuous congregation this cannot be attempted."

In his chapter on "What asylums ought to be," Mr Browne gives a pleasing picture of several of the institutions already existing, which approach nearest to the healthy standard, such as Pirna in Saxony,* Dr Fox's at Brislington in England, Hartford in the United States, and Esquirol's in France. These appear from the description to correspond to miniature worlds, whence all the disagreeable alloys of common life are as much as possible excluded, and the more pleasing portions carefully cultivated. The success which has already attended these philanthropic institutions, especially that of Hartford, is a sufficient guarantee of what may be expected from the more general adoption and following out of the principles on which they are regulated. Towards the removal of the chief obstacles to the application of these principles, we can say with confidence, that Mr Browne's lectures will contribute much; and we cannot refrain from expressing a hope, that he will continue in the benevolent course which he has commenced with so much ardour, and whose beneficial effects, we are informed, are already visible in the institution under his charge; since, as a practical man, his example and opinions cannot fail to have much weight with those under whose control asylums are placed, with the relations of the insane, and with those engaged in their

treatment.

* A short account of this hospital will be found in the next article.

ARTICLE VIII.

MR COMBE ON THE INSTITUTIONS OF GERMANY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL.

SIR, DRESDEN, 24th July 1837. As all statistical information regarding the present state of Phrenology is interesting, I send you a few facts regarding its progress in some of the cities of Germany.

I arrived in Hamburgh on 27th May. It is a free town, and is distinguished by intellectual activity as much as by commercial enterprise. It has a Gymnasium or College, in which lectures on science, history, and languages, are delivered. I saw a House of Refuge at Horn, near Hamburgh, for the reformation of juvenile offenders, which is conducted on very enlightened and humane principles. There were then fifty-four children in it, of whom thirteen were girls. It is supported by subscription, and the annual cost is L.10, 4s. Sterling for each child, beyond the produce of their labour. It is conducted by Candidat Wicher, an unplaced clergyman, and his wife. He has unlimited authority, and is obviously the soul of the institution. He was born in the lower ranks of society, and knows the manners and feelings of the people; yet he is intellectual, refined, and gentlemanly in his manners and appearance. The children are taught reading, writing, religion, and a trade, and there is a master for every twelve of them, who never leaves them night or day. The institution consists of several distinct buildings, none of them ornamental or expensive, placed in a field of a few The children are punished by deprivation of food, confinement, or flogging, when they behave ill; but always mode.. rately, as a parent would chastise his children: and although there are no walls nor other fences, they do not run away. A few of them, however, laid a plan to burn the whole establishment, when Mr Wicher's wife should be confined, and when they expected that his attention should be engaged by her. Their scheme was revealed by one of themselves, and defeated. It is a House of Refuge for young persons who have either been condemned by the courts of law for crimes, and suffered the punishment allotted by the law in the House of Correction, and who afterwards, by the consent of their parents, have come here for reformation,-for delinquents apprehended for first offences, and whose parents, rather than have them tried and dealt with according to law, subscribe a contract by which they are delivered over to this establishment for improvement, and for children of evil dispositions, whose parents voluntarily apply to

acres.

have them admitted into it for their amendment.

Mr Wicher,

although entirely unacquainted with Phrenology, told me that he had been struck by the flatness in the coronal region, and the roundness of the lower region of the head, in the children who were most remarkable for depravity.

In Hamburgh I did not see or hear of more than two phrenologists,-one Mr Bower Kleeft, a Dutchman by birth, but long resident in London. He is a very devoted phrenologist, and keeps a statuary shop here, in which he sells copies of Mr Deville's busts, having the organs marked. He has got Deville's work on Phrenology translated into German. He works as an artist, and sells stucco figures, but his great object is to propagate Phrenology. He says that the Medical Doctors of Hamburgh leave their carriages at a little distance from his shop, and buy a bust and carry it away under their cloaks, as if they were ashamed of what they were doing. Some of them return for a second bust, and he says that he sees evident proofs that Phrenology is exciting interest among a few, but they are afraid to avow their impressions. The other gentleman who knows something of Phrenology is Dr Kröger, Teilfeld, No. 8, a teacher of the deaf and dumb at the Weisen-haus. He takes a great interest in education, and corresponds with the most eminent educationists of Europe. He has a valuable collection of twenty-three works or pamphlets on Phrenology, commencing with a work of Dr Gall's, published in Vienna in 1792, and extending over the years from 1803 to 1833. from 1803 to 1833. He had read the translation of my System by Dr Hirschfield.

Dr Hirschfield came from Bremen to meet me, and informed me that the publication of his translation of the Constitution of Man into German had been suspended, by the failure of his own health and other causes, but that he would have it published in a few months, the MS. having been long ago completed, except the Appendix. I visited Dr Wurm, His Excellency Syndicus Sieveking, and other gentlemen of high consideration in Hamburgh, received the greatest attention from them all, and if there had been more known phrenologists I should have heard of them.

On Friday, 2d June, I arrived at Berlin, and presented introductions to the most eminent Professors, the English Ambassador, Lord William Russell, and other gentlemen, and again met with every possible kindness and attention. The magnificence of the public buildings in Berlin is well known; the streets are wide and the houses handsome, and altogether we found it a pleasant residence, although so cold that we repeatedly had fires. Among all the Professors whom I saw (and I was told that I had seen nearly all the distinguished men), not one professed himself to be a phrenologist; and I could not discover that

any collection of phrenological busts or skulls exist in the town. Professor Ideler, who is Director of the Lunatic Asylum, had read Dr Spurzheim's works and mine, and told me that he saw the importance of Phrenology, and was impressed with its truth, but that he had no means of studying it, it being difficult to do so from books alone. Professor Froriep, whose father had written a pamphlet on the science thirty years ago, had read something on it, but he is not a phrenologist. He, however, requested me to order a series of casts of national skulls to be sent to him from Edinburgh, for the Academy of Arts, of which he is a Director.

I met Baron Humboldt, the celebrated traveller, at Lord William Russell's at dinner, and found him to possess a magnificent anterior lobe, with excellent sentiments. He had known Dr Gall for twenty years in Paris, and regarded him as a man of genius. He said that Gall had always spoken much of his brother's head (whose mask is in the phrenological collection), but never saw any thing in his own till he had distinguished himself. I told him that, in his brother's mask, the organs of Language and Number are very large, and he said that the talents corresponded. I added that, in his own head, there is a very large anterior lobe, almost all the organs of which are nearly equally developed, so that a phrenologist could not specify any one talent in which he would be pre-eminent, but that no one could hesitate in saying that he had the brain of a man of very high intellectual power. He is said to be sixty-four years of age. He is not at all favourable to Phrenology, yet his head is one of the strongest proofs of its truth. I called for Dr J. Müller, Professor of Physiology, who is known over all Europe, and is now publishing on Physiology. I was told that he is a decided opponent of Phrenology; but I had no conversation with him, and never met him again. Dr Dietirici, who is one of the Council of the Minister of Public Instruction, told me, that the question of improving the schools for females is under consideration, and that he had advocated views on this subject essentially the same as those contained in my Lectures on Popular Education, of which I gave him a copy. He told me also, that the minister would acknowledge receipt, in due form, to Messrs Chambers, of the volume of their Journal, which I presented in their names.

On 13th June we arrived at Leipzig, and again saw several of the most distinguished literary men. There is not one phrenologist among them, so far as I could learn, but Dr Radius expressed much interest in the subject, and regretted that he had no means of studying it.

On Saturday, 17th June, we reached Dresden, and presented our letters. Dr Seiler, Director of the Chirurgical and Medical