gentleman publicly expound his system, and he had frequently conversed with him in private on the subject, and therefore, when he gave a plain statement of his impressions of what the new views really were, derived from such authentic sources, and corrected with so much care, and even scrupulosity, it will easily be credited that he did not contemplate the possibility of their JUSTLY giving rise to such a manifesto on the part of Mr Owen as the following, inserted in the Edinburgh Advertiser of 2d March, 1824, and in most of the newspapers about that time.

To the EDITOR of the ADVERTIser.

"SIR,-I have just received the second Number of the "Phrenological Journal, in which is given what is called A Phrenological Analysis of Mr Owen's New Views of Society.'

66 6

"Where the writer of that article found this new view of so"ciety I know not; certainly not in any of my writings; for "in its most essential principles and practical details it bears no resemblance whatever to the plan which I recommend.

"And I solemnly protest against such a compound of folly, absurdity, and immorality, being given to the world for a system, "the sole object of which is to improve the moral and intellec"tual powers, and to increase the happiness of man; not by "these wild and imaginary flights of fancy, but by well-devised, judicious, practical measures, founded on a correct knowledge "of the nature of man, and upon the experience of his past his"tory: (Signed) "ROBERT OWEN. "New Lanark, 26th February, 1824."

Now we cannot help thinking that Mr Owen has been rather hasty in criticising in such terms what was honestly meant as a fair exposé of his peculiar views. For, in the first place, this "compound of folly, absurdity, and immorality," is so very like what his own writings and conversation would lead us to believe his system to be, that his very intelligent disciple, who had actually published on the subject, and who was supposed to be intimately acquainted with the new views, clearly conceived them to be fairly stated in the text as corrected by his notes. If therefore Mr Owen's views are of so obscure a nature as to admit of a "compound of folly, "immorality, and absurdity" being substituted in their place, without his own followers being able to perceive the

change, he ought to be very gentle in his reproaches to men of old society, when they fail to apprehend his meaning.

In the second place. If Mr Owen had delayed bestowing on us such a wholesale condemnation, until he had told in what points the representation of his views is erroneous, his denunciation would have been much more effectual and philosophical. Indeed, so far as we have been able to learn, (and we have it from pretty good authority,) his objections extend only or chiefly to two statements, one regarding the indulgence of the sexual propensity, and the other regard. ing the existence of an intelligent First Cause, on neither of which, he says, has he ever fully explained himself. But even granting that our statements on these points do not contain Mr Owen's ideas, it must be observed, that this does not in any degree weaken our argument; for his opinions on these topics form a mere fractional part of his system, or rather they form no part of it at all, as they have no necessary connexion with his principles. Indeed, the very circumstance of his never having explained himself on them, while he has been so long and so zealously disseminating all his other views, affords a demonstrative proof of the justice of this inference.

Mr Owen, therefore, in inviting us to publish a contradiction of our statements in regard to the New Views, without previously convincing us by evidence that we have really misapprehended and misrepresented him, seems to forget an important tenet in his own creed, viz. that OUR BELIEF IS NOT IN OUR OWN POWER, and that, constituted as we are, we must yield faith to the stronger evidence; and as all that evidence forces us to believe that we have not done Mr Owen injustice, we cannot recant until he operate a change in our perceptions. To give him, however, every facility of doing so, we offered to insert a short refutation from himself if he chose to take up, and confine himself to our facts and arguments. To this proposal he has agreed; but we suppose, from the pressure of other avocations, he has not yet found time to favour us with any remarks. In VOL. I.-No III. 2 H

VENTRILOQUISM.

the meantime, justice to ourselves demanded that we should take some notice of his widely-circulated letter.

ARTICLE X.

PHRENOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE VOCAL ILLUSIONS COMMONLY CALLED VENTRILOQUISM.

IF Phrenology be true, all the phenomena of the moral and intellectual nature of man, however hitherto perplexing, must be made plain before it. Indeed, many of its opponents already admit, that it affords at least a sufficient explanation of phenomena which have been given up in despair, by metaphysicians of all descriptions, as inexplicable-according to the formula in that behalf-in the present state of human knowledge. This sufficiency, however, supplies one of the Baconian requisites for the admissibility of a cause. The other, the existence, is still disputed; phrenologists say it is demonstrated, as will be plain to their antagonists, when they condescend to do justice to the evidence.

The nature of the singular art called, or rather miscalled, Ventriloquism, has been variously viewed by philosophical writers, both of the present and former times. The nearest approach to the truth was undoubtedly made by the French philosophers, who investigated the subject in the year 1770. The light of Phrenology enables us now to confirm their views, so far as they go, and, as we humbly think, to complete the demonstration. A brief description and history of this extraordinary vocal illusion, while it is necessary to our present purpose, may not be unacceptable to our readers.

Those who possess the art have invariably the power of imitating with their voice the voices of other persons, the cries of animals, and even the sounds produced by the motion and impulse of inanimate matter. They are always perfect imitators of sounds of every variety and description;

but their most mysterious power is that of deluding those they address into the persuasion that the sound comes from a point not only out of, but at a considerable distance from, the speaker's own person. The voice, in such cases, having always a certain stifled sound, as if it originated in the chest, and being often uttered with the mouth nearly shut, at least with very little or no movement of the lips, was long, in ignorance of its true nature, referred to the stomach or belly; whence its name. It is not by any means clear, however, that the deluded would have established the stomach and belly as the parts of speech, if the deluders had not themselves directed them there; and this leads us to a brief statement of what is known historically of this art. It seems to have been much more prevalent in ancient times than we now find it. It is known to have been among the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Jews, and the Greeks; and these were just the climates where great flexibility in the organs of speech, being joined with the requisite mental powers, we should have expected to have found it. Scripture makes many references to the magicians, the wizards, the charmers, and those that have familiar spirits; and the profound Selden saw reason to translate the Hebrew Ob-plural, Oboth, (generally translated Python, or magician), by Demon or Spirit, which was believed to dwell in the belly, and speak within the possessed without their exercising their own organs of speech. Accordingly, the Septuagint translates Ob by the Greek word engastrimuthos, and the Vulgate by ventriloquus, both words signifying the same thing, namely, speaking with, or at least from, the belly. This was too valuable a deception not to be practised by the cunning deluders of the superstitious ancients, and it became so common as to form a kind of divination called gastromancy, where the diviner answered without appearing to move his lips, so that the listener believed he heard an aerial voice. There has been much controversy, even among divines, as to the reality of the ghost of

Samuel. Eustathius, Archbishop of Antioch, in the fourth century, composed a treatise in Greek, to prove that the supposed evocation of Samuel was the deception of a demon, of which the Witch of Endor was possessed. This is, in truth, a treatise on engastrimism, according to the notions then entertained of it; for the Archbishop has no idea that the art was not preternatural. It is by no means clear, that Saul saw Samuel, the word perceived being more properly understood, as he takes his information from the woman with regard to what did appear, and is prostrate on the earth when Samuel speaks. Now, ventriloquism in the woman has been supposed all that was required. The Septuagint calls her engastrimuthon; and Selden expressly says, that in the original, this woman spoke by means of Ob, or a demon, which word is, in other places of the Old Testament, translated ventriloquus. The opinion is common, that the Pythian responses were delivered by the same vocal illusions; and in the Vulgate, the Witch of Endor herself is said habere pythonem.

In the earlier ages of Christianity the same art prevailed; and St Chrysostom and Ecumenius both make mention of diviners who were called Engastrimandri. There is no reason to believe that so imposing and profitable an engine to move a rude people was unknown to the necromancers and enchanters of the dark ages; but we have no account of an individual ventriloquist earlier than the sixteenth century, when one appeared in France of the name of Louis Brabant, valet de chambre of Francis First. This man practised his It is related of him,

art solely for purposes of swindling. that being denied the hand of a young woman of fortune and station much above his own, by her father, he renewed his addresses after the father's death, and when in the presence of the lady and her mother, imitated the deceased's voice, which seemed to come from the ceiling of the apart

1 Sam xxviii. 7, 8.