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We have received a full and accurate report of an ANTI-PHRENOLOGICAL LECTURE delivered at the INN of CAIRNDOW, in September, 1823, by a celebrated LECTURER ON ANATOMY. It is under consideration.

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PHRENOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA.-We have been favoured with the following extracts of a letter, dated 11th June, 1824, from a member of that Society to a Gentleman in Edinburgh:-" Our "Society has not increased in numbers; but more of its members "have been strengthened in their conviction of the importance of the pursuit, and are more strenuous in its support than formerly. The prejudice so long prevailing, that the study of Phrenology, and the be"nefits accruing from it, could be pursued and appreciated only by the "medical profession, is now subsiding; and we can boast of receiving " zeal and talent for our cause from some gentlemen of the bar. One " of these latter (Joseph Hopkinson, Esq. counsellor at law,) is a Vice"President of our Society; the other Vice-President is Dr Horner, Ad"junct Professor of Anatomy in our Medical College. Among our "lecturers for the year are several who teach Physiology, and who " are attached to the public institutions for the Medical and Surgical "Relief of the Poor." The letter proceeds to mention, that Mr Combe's Essays on Phrenology have been reprinted in that city; that Elements of Phrenology' have been published by Charles Caldwell, M. D., Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Clynical Practice in Transylvania University, Lexington; that "the Philadelphia Journal of the "Medical and Physical Sciences, edited by Dr Chapman," the most extensively circulated periodical of that class in the Union, has strenuously espoused the cause of Phrenology as a true and important science ;* that several lecturers on Physiology and Pathology teach Phrenology to their students, and that the Professor of Anatomy in the Academy of Fine Arts is a zealous phrenologist, and impresses his students with its value and importance. The letter proceeds," I have just learned "that it is contemplated to have an Athenæum in New-York, and a " lecturership on Phrenology attached to it. It may be well to remark, "that the proposal of one of the young gentlemen of that city to lec"ture on the science gave rise to the idea of forming an Athenæum. "Within the last year there has been an increasing interest evidenced "for the study and knowledge of Phrenology in that city, and I have "little doubt but that we shall soon hear of a society having been or"ganized there." It is added, that Dr Gall, Dr Spurzheim, Sir G. S. McKenzie, Mr G. Combe, Mr Andrew Combe, Mr William Scott, Dr Butter, and Mr Alexander Hood, had been elected honorary members of the Philadelphia Phrenological Society.

We have to return our best thanks to our correspondent at HERTFORD for his obliging communication about Pallet, and also to apologize for not having sooner acknowledged receipt of it. The fact is, that, by some unaccountable neglect, his letter did not reach us till the middle of July,five weeks after the appearance of our last Number, in which we had already given as full an account of the same case as we were able to collect. Had his letter arrived in time we should have made use of it. As it is, he will perceive, by referring to p. 425, in what respect we differ from him.

* Sce Extracts from this Journal in the present Number, p. 637.

We are happy to be able to announce the safe arrival of the very valuable donation from Monsieur Royer of the Jardin du Roi, Paris, to the Phrenological Society, of which we gave a list in our last. Many of the specimens are extremely valuable, and will prove of great use to the Society, and they already attract many visitors. The skulls in Comparative Anatomy which Monsieur Royer has sent will lay the foundation for a series of observations in Comparative Phrenology, which are, in some measure, new in this country. And it is somewhat curious to notice, that at the very time these skulls were on their way from the continent of Europe, a paper on Comparative Phrenology by Dr. B. H. Coates of Philadelphia, and explanatory of them, was on its way from the continent of America, and that both met at Edinburgh at the same time. This interesting paper was read before the Phrenological Society of Philadelphia, and afterwards printed in the Medical Journal of that city. In a future Number we shall notice it more fully. In the meantime, we hope Monsieur Royer's example will not be without its effect in inducing others to forward the cause of truth, by sending such donations as they may be able to command.

The Phrenological Society has also been indebted to the kind zeal of Mr De Ville of London, for a very extensive donation of casts of eminent and remarkable characters; thus forming another very valuable addition to the Society's Museum since our last Number appeared.

Our readers will perceive, that, in addition to the usual quantity of letter-press, we have, in this Number, and at a considerable expense, given a Plate, with five portraits of celebrated characters, in illustration of the article on Ideality. We beg to add, that, if our success continues to increase as it has hitherto done, we propose to give, from time to time, similar illustrations of other organs.

Some of our medical readers have lately asked us if we did not mean to notice Dr Pritchard's remarks on Phrenology, contained in his valuable work on Nervous Diseases. Want of room precludes us from doing so in this Number, but we may in the next. They scarcely bear upon Phrenology.

A very interesting memoir, containing an account of an extraordinary female character, and accompanied by a cast of the head, has just been received by the Phrenological Society from Richard Carmichael, Esq. the justly celebrated surgeon of Dublin. Mr C. states, that it may be published in the Society's Transactions; but the case is so very curious and instructive, that we should be sorry to see it so long delayed. Mr W. Bewick, who made the copy of Haydon's Lazarus, exhibited here some months ago, has taken a very accurate drawing of this woman, and also presented it to the Society.

We have to solicit indulgence and a favourable construction from several correspondents, to whose communications and inquiries it has been impossible for us, from the pressure of matter, to do justice. We hope they will accept our sincere thanks for the interest they have taken in our welfare, and give entire credit to our promise to pay them due attention hereafter. The truth is, the evidences of the relation and bearing of our science crowd so fast upon us, that we find it exceedingly difficult either to take them in order, or to allow proper space for their exhibition. Have the advocates of any system of metaphysics ever had reason to make a similar acknowledgment?

Dr Majendie offers to exchange his " Journal de Physiologie," with We may say that we accept of his offer, and will do the same with other journals that choose it.

ours.

INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT.

In submitting to the public the First Number of the first periodical work devoted to Phrenology, we deem it proper, as conductors of that work, to make our motives and our objects perfectly understood. When we say that of the educated public,-as well those who perform as those who delegate the labour of thought,-very few individuals indeed have yet formed an adequate conception of the real nature, the cogent evidence, and the vast importance of phrenology, we neither reproach the public with its ignorance, nor compliment the phrenologists on their knowledge. We merely affirm the fact, that the public have not, and the phrenologists have informed themselves on the subject. It is more than time that the indifferent but impartial world should know, that they are not only uninformed, but grossly and scandalously misled, in regard to this new department of knowledge. Although the proofs are so simple, that any person of average education is perfectly competent to understand and apply them, the path of evidence is not that in which they have been conducted. The ENEMIES of phrenology have hitherto been their favourite guides, and these have most scrupulously avoided that course. This influence had the more easy operation, inasmuch as it built upon a foundation of not unnatural prejudice against a doctrine in itself certainly very new, very bold, very startling to preconceived notions, and coming, withal, from a very suspicious quarter. Germany, it must be admitted, was in doubtful repute in this country, because of some alleged fantastical speculation, not a little moral heresy, much literary extravagance, and a great deal of quackery,-not confined to mining,-all the produce and export of that country, when yet another German started yet another spe

culation, which, at its first declaration, seemed to leave all the known extravagances of his country immeasurably behind. The doctrine thus appearing, prima facie, absurd, it is not matter of wonder that its terms,- -a few of them, as compounds, being new to our language, our language, were themselves scorned and ridiculed; and that by a sort of reaction they rendered the doctrine itself apparently still more monstrous.*

It will be farther remembered, that at the time the doctrine reached this country, the Edinburgh Review was the Koran of the reading public. The reception of the new doctrine, accordingly, depended on the fiat of that literary dictatorship, whom it pleased, in a manifesto unmatched, as has been demonstrated elsewhere, by all the presumption and quackery of Germany itself, to annihilate "craniology" and "craniologists" at one decisive blow. The public were thoroughly convinced, and there was an end of the matter. Now, although it be humiliating, it is true, that this first denouncement continues the measure of the public knowledge, and the rule of the public opinion at this moLet any one, either anti-phrenologist or neutral, ask himself, what are the grounds upon which phrenology,

ment.

A few words, once for all, on the terms of phrenology, cannot have a more suitable place than this. They have been laughed at, until they have become the very stalest pleasantry, we take it, in present currency. It would seem, therefore, not an unfit time to examine them seriously. Of these THIRTY-FOUR laughtermoving terms, will it be credited, by those who have laughed at them till they can laugh no more, that TWENTY-FIVE,-compounded in the same manner, and with precisely the same sense and meaning,are peaceful occupants of Dr Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, where they have never occasioned a smile!-NINE, then, remain to be justified; 1st, These were, like other new technical terms, necessary to express a meaning for which there were no words in Johnson's Dictionary; 2d, They are, with one Greek exception, compounded of English words, either in Johnson's Dictionary, or in very current usage, and of the termination ness or ty, the value of which is known to every school-boy. The eight words are, adhesive, acquisitive, constructive, ideal,-all four in Johnson amative, concentrative combative, and secretive, the four last in use, though not in Johnson's Dictionary. The Greek derivative is philoprogenitiveness (or the animal propensity to cherish offspring), as legitimate, at least, as many terms in mineralogy, and still more in botany, or any other new Greek terms for any other new science, art, matter, or thing, which is best expressed by a Greek word,-and, above all, which there is no determination to hunt down. It is time the public should know, that not one of these terms has been shewn, by the most bitter enemy of phrenology, to be either illogically compounded, or unphilosophically employed. They have merely been laughed at-as very long names !-(Edinburgh Review, No xlix.) This is not the only instance of sheer babyism which we shall bring home to our manly opponents.

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