Outlines of Physiology: with an Appendix on Phrenology. By P. M. ROGET, M. D., Secretary to the Royal Society, Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution of Great Britain, &c. &c. First American edition, revised, with numerous notes. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, (successors to Carey and Co.,) 1839. 8vo. pp. 516.

Our con

To notice the whole of this volume is not our intention. cern is with the Appendix only; and chiefly with but a part of that; the other part having been already sufficiently examined, and satisfactorily replied to, in the Edinburgh Phrenological Journal, and elsewhere.

The portion of the Appendix thus already analysed, appears to have been written and published by Dr. Roget in 1818 or '19. The portion which we purpose to analyse is of a much later date, having probably been composed by him in 1837 or '38. Be its date, however, what it may, the preparation of its author for writing it does not seem to have been either ample or mature. Our reason for saying so, being as follows, is to ourselves satisfactory. Our readers will receive it for what they may think it worth.

In April, 1838, Dr. Roget wrote to a friend of ours, then in Great Britain, but now in the United States, assuring him that "between 1819 and that month (April, 1838) he (Dr. Roget) had never read one word on the subject (phrenology), and never made one observation on it." And yet, in the course of that same year (1838), that same writer published against the science another tirade, as bitter and condemnatory as hostile feelings and disrespectful language could render it. And that article constitutes the subject immediately before us. But before commencing our analysis of the article, let us briefly but candidly enquire, what, at the date of that publication, must have VOL. II.-10

been the amount of our author's knowledge (or rather, what was necessarily the depth of his ignorance) of the then existing condition of phrenology? By this enquiry, we shall attain no inconsiderable acquaintance with his unfitness for writing on it.

From 1819 until 1838 is a period of nineteen years, during which, at least tenfold as much had been written, said, and effected by observation, experiment, and general research, to throw light on phrenology, as had been previously done, from the commencement of the science. And of that entire mass of instructive materials, Dr. Roget, by his own acknowledgment, is utterly ignorant, Assuredly he was so in April, 1838; and his preface, announcing the publication of the article we are considering, is dated "October 20th, 1838,” only six months afterwards! Let it, moreover, be farther observed and borne in mind, that in that preface he represents his occupation and disposition to be such as to allow him, in his own words, "neither the leisure nor the inclination to engage in controversies" on the subject of phrenology. In plain terms, he neither employed the means, nor possessed even a willingness, to inform himself in the science.

From his own confession, then, literally interpreted, Dr. Roget was necessarily and intentionally ignorant of the state of phrenology at the time of his second attempt to refute it. So obvious is this, and so futile, not to say contemptible, does such proceeding, under such circumstances, render his sophistry and cavils on the subject, that were it not for the name he has attained in other branches of knowledge, we should entertain toward him, as an anti-phrenologist, no other sentiment than indignation and scorn for his deceptiveness and audacity, and pity for his weakness. And this would induce us to be silent and regardless of all he could say. Perhaps even now it would better become us to pass him unnoticed, under a conviction that, in the full meaning of the expression, he "knows not what he does," and that his anti-phrenological power is but impotence.

For nineteen of the busied and most prosperous years of the friends and fast-multiplying advocates of phrenology, in Europe and America, he sealed up in relation to it every inlet to knowledge, and thus, as respected all its concerns, continued in a state of lethean apathy, or virtual hybernation. And at the end of that period, awaking, like Rip Van Winkle, from his slumber of a lifetime, and dazzled into blindness by the effulgence around him, plunges again into his antiphrenological perversities. From the absolute puerility, moreover, of his efforts to suppress it, he seems to consider phrenology as still in the same state of comparative infancy in 1838, in which he had left it in 1819; and therefore resorts again to the same worn-out and oftrepelled contradictions of it. He is wholly imperceptive of the growth

and strength it had acquired in the long space of nineteen years. In this hallucination, he resembles not a little that celebrated personage, Dominie Samson, who, because he had known Harry Bertram when a child of three or four years old, continued to call him "little Harry," when six feet in height, and at the age of twenty-three! And so does our time-defying and improvement-contemning author consider and treat our science as little phrenology" in 1838, because

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he deemed it infantile in 1819, the last time he had thought of it.

On contemplating this long-practised supineness and neglect of Dr. Roget, we read with astonishment and condemnation the following clause in the preface of his American editor.

"It will be seen that further examination (of phrenology) in the interval of many years, which has elapsed since the publication of the sixth edition of the Encyclopædia, has not induced him (Dr. Roget) to modify his sentiments on this head."

What shall we say of this broad and bare contradiction between our author and his editor? and how reconcile so fatal a collision? The former confesses that he has altogether neglected phrenology for nineteen years; while the latter avers that he has employed that "interval" in "farther examination" of it! In which of the two, the master or the man, shall enquirers confide? or will they allow themselves to be duped by a confidence in either? To such a question, an enlightened public will be at no loss for a suitable answer. From that source, therefore, let the answer come. Nor can it fail, we think, to come with the blight of a sirocco on the work we are examining. And that it will also impair the credibility of the editor, can hardly be doubted. But to consider our subject in another point of view:

From the entire cast and tenor of his conduct toward phrenology, it is abundantly evident that Dr. Roget's object, in the essay before us, is not faithfully and conscientiously to try the science, but tyrannically to condemn and execute it unheard, regardless alike of its innocence or guilt, merit or demerit, and of the positive mandate of justice on the subject. Is it demanded of us why we thus accuse our author? Our reply is ready. Because he refuses, with the coldness of the icy north, and the insensitiveness of its granite, to listen to either evidence or advocacy in behalf of phrenology; and persists in this refusal for nineteen years, (though its cause, during that period, is exciting deep interest and earnest sympathy in most parts of Christendom,) and then pronounces against it his sentence of condemnation! If any star-chamber proceeding ever surpassed this in premeditated disregard of right and mockery of justice, we know not where the record of it may be found!

Will this imputation be accounted by the friends of our author, and the foes of phrenology, unceremonious and harsh? Be it so. Our object is neither affected mildness, undeserved courtesy, nor counterfeit compliment. It is truth, in plainness, without reserve, and regardless of consequences. And we contend that the imputation preferred by us is indisputably correct. In proof of it, we fearlessly appeal to the facts of the case. Those who are solicitous to receive courtesy and observance, ought themselves to practise them.

Nor, in this view of the matter, has our author any shadow of cause to complain of us, in the capacity of phrenologists, since he, as an anti-phrenologist, affects to treat the science with a sneer bordering on rudeness, from the beginning to the end of his sophistical essay. In no single instance does he discuss the subject of his paper with the ingenuousness of a fair and liberal mind, or the dignity of a philosopher. Availing himself of his elevated standing and connections in science, his disposition and effort seem to be, to hector presumptuously over those who dissent from his dicta, (as Bridgewater writer, "Secretary to the Royal Society, Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution of Great Britain, &c. &c.,") and from the time-worn dogmas of other gowned and titled authorities. But had the professor ten royalities for each one that now bedecks him, and on which he founds his spurious right to dictate and condemn, it would not, in this common-sense, matter-of-fact period of the world, in the slightest degree avail him-except, indeed, with those who value the shadow more highly than the substance. Science recognises no titles, save those which she herself bestows on such of her votaries as have advanced truth, extended the limits of her own empire, and benefited man by their talents and labours. Least of all, does she recognise a "royal road" to her temple, or sanction a royal claim (because it is royal) to minister at her altar. Nor will any of her true disciples suffer themselves to be superciliously driven by frowns or jeers, or lured by false logic, either out of her service, or into the service of those who derive their titles from sources merely artificial, and therefore illegitimate. Their delight and practice are, to appeal to reason, and acquiesce in the issue of observation and experience, neither distorted by prejudice nor perverted by design. Never, however, will they do else than regard with indifference, or repel with disdain, every effort of their opponents to assail them with ridicule, annoy them through ignorance, or injure their cause, by studied misrepresentation. Whether or not our author has been concerned in any or all of these practices, it is our purpose to enable our readers to judge. And we shall, without farther preface, engage in the task.

To show that the object of Dr. Roget is not to do justice to phreno

logy, by fair discussion, giving an impartial statement of evidence for it and against it, but, as far as possible, to discredit and degrade it, by sneering and sarcasm, we shall submit to the reader a single extract from the essay we are examining.

Toward the close of the last century, or the beginning of the present, (we have forgotten the precise year,) Dr. Gall opened in Vienna a course of lectures on the science. No sooner did the doctrines which he taught in his lectures become a subject of discussion in the society of the place, than the priesthood made war on them, and procured a suppression of them, by an interdict of the government. A respectable body of strangers, however, sojourning in Vienna at the time, petitioned the court in behalf of the doctor, and were successful in having the interdict so far modified, that permission was granted him to lecture to them. Of this occurrence, Dr. Rogct gives the following contemptuous narrative:

"They (the strangers) formed a strong party in his (Dr. Gall's) favour, and made such interest at court, principally through the medium of the foreign ambassadors, that the doctor was again permitted to resume his prelections, on condition that he delivered them to foreigners only; as it was wisely considered that their being exposed to the dangers of knowledge would not be of any material consequence to the state, as long as care was taken that the infection did not spread farther; the emperor kindly preserving the bliss of ignorance to the exclusive enjoyment of his Austrian subjects.”

This might, perhaps, be alleged to be a double-pointed jeer, directed alike at his majesty of Austria, and the discoverer of phrenology. Subsequent passages of the essay, however, make it clearly appear, that the aim was more especially at the latter individual.

In proof of Dr. Roget's entire ignorance of the history and present condition of phrenology, he has not adduced a single objection to it, which had not been previously urged, perhaps, a score of times, and as often refuted by the advocates of the science. Of this description is the following trite and, unfounded assertion; which, made by him first in 1819, is still pertinaciously and doggedly defended by him.

"The truth is, that there is not a single part of the encephalon which has not, in one case or other, been impaired, destroyed, or found defective, without any apparent change in the sensitive, intellectual, or moral faculties."

This assertion is in several respects very strikingly at fault. In the first place, it is untrue. In the estimation of all men, antiphrenologists excepted, this would be fatal to it. To many, if not most of them, however, it would seem recommendatory, rather than otherwise; for they deal in little else than untruth. In the second