Now phrenology sets us free from all such partial views. The phrenologist does not take his own mind as a standard of human nature. Although benevolence were weak in himself, whence he would have a natural tendency to regard selfishness as the ruling principle of human conduct, he would be restrained from adopting this idea as the principle of his philosophy, by finding other individuals in whose life and conversation benevolence, in all its native simplicity and worth, bore the predominating sway, and perceiving that they had a great developement of brain where he had a small one. In like manner, a phrenologist would not set down the love of praise as the universal passion, merely because he had an inordinate love of approbation in his own mind; for extended observation would soon make him acquainted with many individuals to whom praise conveyed but little pleasure, and who had no desire to climb the dizzy heights of Fame.

The Metaphysicians, in studying the mind by exclusive reflection on their own consciousness, laboured also under another great disadvantage. No fact is more certain than that individuals differ in their natural capacities of feeling and of thinking. One, perhaps, has naturally a powerful capacity of feeling benevolence and a weak sensibility to justice: Another has a combination precisely the reverse; his sentiment of justice is eminently strong, but his benevolence weak. It is a highly interesting problem in the philosophy of the mind to discover how each of these individuals will feel and be disposed to act in the affairs of life, and how disposed to view the great questions in politics, legislation and religion, that may be submitted to their decision. The philosopher who merely reflects on his own consciousness, has very inadequate means to throw light on such a question. If he confine his attention strictly to his own mind, it is impossible that he can discover even the fact that the natural powers of feeling and thinking are different in different individuals. But, suppose him to have discovered the fact by intercourse with society, his mode of philosophizing, which never carries him beyond the circle of his own bosom, cannot afford him a ray of light upon the subject. And yet the point itself is of great importance, for the solution of it must in

volve the theory of the great diversity in human sentiment and judgment, combined with that degree of coincidence which every where exists. Suppose the case to be stated of a person who has lost an immense property by a casual conflagration, and who has thereby been rendered insolvent, and that a creditor has stript him by a legal execution, of the last remnant of his property, and left him in utter destitution and want, and that the opinion of different individuals is asked upon the proceeding. One will probably regard the proceeding as cruel and unjust; while another will call it hard, but not unjust, for, in his opinion, every one is entitled to his own. The sceptical philosopher, on hearing these different decisions, would affirm that there is no standard of right and wrong in human affairs, and no natural sentiment of justice in the human mind; otherwise, he would say, that as all who have eyes see the same object, green or black,-so, if such a sentiment existed, all who possess it ought to see the same object right or wrong. Every metaphysician has felt the difficulty of answering this objection; but phrenology enables us to throw the light of the meridian sun upon it. It proves that there is, in fact, an innate sentiment of justice in the human mind, but it shews that it is strong or weak, according to the size and activity of a particular portion of the brain. It proves, also, however, that there are other innate sentiments in the mind besides justice, such as benevolence, veneration, and others; and that these also are strong or weak in proportion to the size and activity of particular parts of the brain to which they are attached. And, in the third place, it proves that, in the affairs of life, our judgments are the results, not of one faculty alone, but of all our faculties acting together and exerting a mutual influence. Thus, the individual in whom the sentiment of Justice is weak, and Benevolence strong, would feel stror-gly by his benevolence for the unhappy debtor, and weakly by his justice for the creditor, who was deprived of his right, and he would pronounce the act cruel and unjust. Another, in whom justice was great and benevolence small, would by his justice feel strongly the claim of right on the part of the creditor, and his benevolence would be weakly affected by the situa

applied them in this manner in analyzing the elements of greatness, our conclusions would possess the truth, the profundity, and the precision of philosophy; and by what other mode of philosophizing may such results be attained?

In the last place, allow me to notice a single other observation of your correspondent relative to the founders of phrenology. He speaks of the empiricism of one or both of its founders. It has been the fate of many great men to be contemned during their lives, and to be highly esteemed by posterity; and I am convinced that such will be the fate of Drs Gall and Spurzheim. Your ingenious correspondent has shown too much candour, and too much good-will to phrenology, to allow me to suppose for a moment that he would wish to throw an unmerited slur upon the character of these two individuals. I beg, therefore, to offer him a few words of explanation, which may perhaps alter his opinion of their merits. Dr Gall was the founder of the science, for he first discovered that particular mental powers go in concomitance with particular portions of the brain. When he had made the discovery, he set about following it out with ardour, and what was the result? In the beginning of his inquiries he did not, and could not, foresee either the result to which they were to lead, or even the relation which each successive fact, as it was discovered, would bear to the whole truths which time and experience might bring to light. He, therefore, contented himself with simply observing nature, and announcing the result of his observations. He perceived, for instance, the desire of property, strong or weak, as one part of the brain was large or small, and he announced this fact; and as the most decided proofs were found in thieves, he called the part the Organ of Theft. In the same way he found another part of the brain very large in murderers, and small in those who had no propensity to destroy, and he announced this discovery, and named the part the Organ of Murder. In this mode of proceeding, it is admitted, there was little of refinement or philosophic acumen, and nothing at all of analysis; but there was a great deal of unsophisticated truth and

downright honesty of purpose, qualities of infinite value in the founder of a science. Dr Gall announced the discoveries of organs as he successively made them, regardless of the ultimate results. It was sufficient for him that the facts he announced existed in nature; for he was confident that time and farther inquiries would show their value. At the same time, while a few only of the organs were announced as mere isolated facts, apparently little connected with each other, and still less with the principles of any philosophy previously received, and when they appeared under the guise of Dr Gall's rude and simple nomenclature, there is little cause for wonder that they provoked merriment rather than excited serious attention in the public. But this is no proof that Dr Gall was wrong in his method of proceeding. On the contrary, he showed the highest wisdom in giving nothing but a plain and undisguised statement of the facts as he successively discovered them, without aiming at systematic arrangements or correct analysis, until greater progress was made in ascertaining the facts. Accordingly, such was really the mode of Dr Gall's early proceeding. In the Monthly Magazine for 1806, a plate and a list of the organs will be found exhibiting the discoveries as they stood in that year, and it will be seen that there is no principle of classification, except priority of discovery, no attempt at analysis of the powers, and nothing but a mere statement of developement and accompanying manifestations, and that then there were still blanks in the cranium and faculties undiscovered, which have since been ascertained.

But what has followed? As soon as observation had brought to light the great body of the facts, a system of the philosophy of man appeared in them coinciding, in the most interesting manner, with the phenomena of life. Relations among the facts then appeared which it was impossible sooner to perceive; and the work of analysis and arrangement then became practicable, which previously it had not been. Hence it was only after the science had been cultivated for twenty years that its real nature and utility were discovered, and it was only then that its form became systematic. Hence also its name and its cha

racter have changed as it proceeded; and, from being at first merely a species of Physiognomy, it has become a science capable of the most useful and interesting applications.

Another great mistake is generally committed in supposing that little has been done to perfect the system. No doubt it is still far from perfection, but the leading facts are established with a degree of precision of which no one can form an adequate conception who does not appeal to nature on the subject. The first discovery was made by Dr Gall in the year 1788, and the prosecution of it has since been the business of his life. It is now twenty years since he was joined in his labours by Dr Spurzheim, and during this period the latter gentleman has been incessant in his observations. Nor do they stand alone as the improvers of the science. There are now many individuals in all the southern countries of Europe who have attended to the subject, and either published their own observations directly, or communicated them to the founders of the system, who have profited by them in their studies. The degree of truth in the system, therefore, and its advancement as a science, must be estimated by the time and talent devoted to its culture, and the opportunities of improving it enjoyed, and not by the numbers of those who believe or who do not believe it. It does not advance one step in intrinsic truth by the number of its votaries; it only becomes the more credible as a matter of faith, Those, therefore, who intend to decide upon its merits on testimony alone must, no doubt, suspend their judgment for a time, although even on this ground its credibility is already considerable. The evidence of one candid and intelligent mind, founded on examination, outweighs the scorn of a thousand who think it too contemptible for inquiry; and, in point of fact, every advocate founds his belief on examination, and every opponent on preconceived prejudices, for no individual of common honesty and attainments has ever inquired into the subject and continued to scoff, and I am certain that none will ever do so. The sooner, therefore, that those who take an interest in human nature resort to observation, o much the better for their own sakes; but they must not suppose

that the science cannot advance a step, or contain any portion of truth, till they believe it, or measure its progress by their knowledge of its principles.

Instead, therefore, of the mode followed by Drs Gall and Spurzheim, in propounding the doctrines, being a proof of empiricism, it is the most incontestible proof of their bona fides. If their discoveries had from the beginning assumed the aspect of a regular and polished science, and been hammered into accordance with the prevailing doctrines of the times, this would have been a clear proof that they were theorizing; for a beautiful system of philosophy could not arise at once, and in a mass, out of observation of facts. Look at Chemistry, Geology, Physiology, or any of the Physical Sciences, and it will be seen how isolated, how inconsistent, nay, how empirical and worthless, numerous facts appear for a time, until future discoveries link them into the chain of causation, and exhibit them in all the beauty and importance of essential parts in a system of truth. The fact, therefore, that order and consistency, and beauty, have arisen out of the mass of incoherence which the discoveries at first presented, affords a strong presumption that the doctrines are not the delusions of a bewildered imagination. That individual would have been less than a man who would have founded a system of speculative philosophy in the way this system was founded; and he would have been more than a man who, from such a foundation, could have raised such a superstructure as this system presents. Time will prove these observations to be just.

Dr Spurzheim observed, that the most deadly blast of calumny against him had proceeded from our city; but, from what he saw, when here, of the intelligence, and candour, and philosophical spirit of her people, he was convinced, that from Edinburgh also would proceed the first vindication of his opinions, and that here Phrenology would first triumph over the errors of the old philosophy.From the liberal and candid spirit displayed by your correspondent, and by the public in general, on the subject, it is clear that this prediction will ere long be fulfilled.

Res non verba quæso,

ON THE ENGLISH DRAMATIC WRIT

ERS WHO PRECEDED SHAKESPEARE.

ever,

No. VIII.

UNDER all the difficulties surrounding the question, and for the reasons assigned in my last article, I am disposed to think, that if the foundation of" the school of Shakespeare" is to be attributed to any one dramatic poet in particular, Marlow has a fairer claim to the distinction than his contemporaries. It is not likely, howthat it was brought to perfection at once-indeed, we have already seen that long previous to the date when Shakespeare began to write for the stage, all the dramatic unities had been disregarded; and if he, in his turn, introduced some improvements, they had been preceded by the gradual advances of others towards the completion of that system upon which his plays are constructed. But whether any and what praise is due to Marlow upon this score, above Greene, Peele, Lodge, or Nash, it seems clear from the prologue to the first part of his "Tamburlaine," and from the testimony of Greene in his "Periinedes the Blacksmith," that Marlow was the first, or one of the first, to bring blank-verse into common use upon the stage in preference to rhime, and that he also was the occasion of another important alteration, in changing very much the nature of the subjects that had previously engaged the attention of audiences. Supposing, therefore, that he had less to do than I have imagined with the invention and establishment of the romantic drama, his productions of this kind deserve, on other accounts, independent even of their poetry, a close examination. To say the least of them, they are all plays of great curiosity to the literary antiquary, in as much as Marlow died about the time when Shakespeare, as far as we can ascertain, began to write for the theatre.

ing, some highly poetical passages, and a scene or two of more pathos than was to be expected from the nature of the plot, and the general style of the composition. Before I enter briefly upon the second part of the same play, I wish to quote a portion of a scene, the conclusion at least of which seems very much in the spirit of Shakespeare, and could not have been produced but by a bold masterpoet, by one (according to the expressions of a master-poet) "whose raptures were all air and fire." The scene lies before Damascus, and the troops of Tamburlaine, his pavilions, and ensigns, are all black, which, according to history, denoted that the conqueror was about to storm the place with remorseless fury, sparing neither age nor infancy. A train of virgins issues from one of the gates of the city, and they sue to Tamburlaine for mercy in the following terms: O then for these and such as we ourselues,

That neuer nourisht thought against thy For vs, for infants, and for all our bloods,

rule,

Pitie, O pitie (sacred emperour)
The prostrate seruice of this wretched

towne !

And take in signe thereof this gilded wreath, Whereto each man of rule hath giuen his hand,

And wisht as worthy subiects happy meanes
Euen with the true Égyptian diadem.
To be inuesters of thy royall browes,

Tam. Virgins, in vaine you labour to That which mine honor sweares shal be preuent perform'd:

Behold my sword, what see you at the point?

Virg. Nothing but feare and fatall steele, my Lord.

Tam. Your fearful minds are thick and misty then,

For there sits death, there sits imperious

death,

Keeping his circuit by the slicing edge.

Act V. Sc. 2.