prefer to have their terminating prominence moulded in imitation of a cocoanut. And I have little doubt, when the interior of the African continent is better known, that nations will be found with their craniums compressed into forms still more unaccountable.* The mere mention of these undoubted facts, when coupled with the knowledge of the functions of the brain derived from the writings of Gall, Spurzheim, and their British disciples, must awaken, in the minds of philosophic observers, ideas of the perfectibility of the human race, and the concentration and expansion of the powers of the human mind, which may make the golden age of the old world, or the Millenium of the present, an event within the reach of ordinary life, and perfectly practicable in the next generation. I know the envy generally attached to the promulgator of a new discovery; and I should not have dared, did a court of inquisition exist in this country, perhaps even to hint at the generalization of facts collected by the great men who have gone before me in the road of discovery. But if the scheme I have now to propose be taken up by Parliament in their next session, I pledge myself, (the principles of Gall and Spurzheim retaining their infallibility,) gradually to lessen by its means the annual amount of crime in this country, and in the course of thirty years, the common term for a generation of human beings, to banish it en tirely from Great Britain. As it is of considerable importance, however, and as it may prevent the honour of my discovery from being appropriated by others, and save a world of literary controversy about priority of ideas, I beg to mention, that the idea came into my organ of inventiveness on the twenty-fifth of July, one thousand, eight hundred, and twenty-one, ten minutes after eleven o'clock at night, and that it entered into my very marked organ of benevolence in less than three minutes after. As all the circumstances which lead to any very notable discovery are of service in tracing the filiation of ideas, I may further remark, that it was after a careful perusal of the Phrenological Notices regarding Haggart's head, attached to the end of that murderer's narrative, and the very satisfactory illustration of that almost prophetic art, which can, by manipulation, typify a thrice-condemned convict as a remarkable culprit, before he is actually hanged! My supper this evening consisted of a plate of strawberries, (very small ones,) and about the eighth part of an ounce, by estimation, of Scottish Parmasan, viz. ewe-milk cheese. Thus much for the ascertainment of my discovery, which, I have little doubt, will add a few leaves more to the already flourishing laurel which already encircles the head of Sir Tobias Tickletobæus, Baronet.† As all the organs of thought and volition are as distinctly laid down in the cranial map of Gall and Spurzheim as the position of the Isle of May, or the Bell Rock, in the charts of the coast of Scotland, and as I have already demonstrated the practicability of compressing the cranial bones, at an early age, into any conceivable form,-nothing more is required, to give a new and definite direction to the thoughts and feelings of the next generation, than to mould the infant head to a given form, by the simple application of an unyielding metal head-dress, formed so as only to permit the developement of the required organs. These metal caps might be moulded from the heads of those whose ruling passions were most strongly marked; and, continuing them of the same form, they might be made of increasing sizes, so as to suit every shade of growth, from puling infancy to the full grown man. If the elevation of the skull, at a certain part, be occasioned by the developement of a particular organ situated under it, (and this has been clearly demonstrated by Dr Spurzheim, and his Scottish disciples,) there can be nothing more easy in nature, or in the The relation which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Othello, of " men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders," may turn out to be a veritable fact. Othello, it will be observed, was a native of Africa. My German commentators generally quote me by my Christian name Tobias; but the Dutch translators always denominate me as above. I mention this, because it has, in more than one instance, occurred that I have been confounded with "my uncle Toby," and I wish as long as possible to preserve my personal identity. brass and iron manufactures, than to furnish metal caps, which, by repressing the growth of the injurious, and encouraging the expansion of the good affections, would inevitably make all the future generations of Britons to think and act alike for the common welfare. For instance, were the Protestant succession wished to be secured to the descendants of the present reigning family, let the royal infants be provided, from their births, with iron caps, with a large vacancy for amativeness and philoprogenitiveness, in which these organs might shoot up to the utmost luxuriance; and if the organs of benevolence and righteousness, (why not benevolentiveness and righteousiveness, Messrs Gall and Spurzheim?) were thought necessary in sovereigns, their growth might be encouraged at the expence of other organs of less public value, -as selfloveativeness and covetiveness.* Repressing the disposition to furtiveness and secretiveness in the next generation, the cause of one class of crimes would be instantly done away. Allow not the organs of destructiveness and combativeness to expand their bony covering, and war and ruin will be banished froin the land. When the means of subsistence become too scanty for the existing population, let the organs of amativeness and philoprogenitiveness have no room for display in the headdresses of the young, and the next generation will live and die in hopeless virginity and unregarded celibacy. The organ of public approbation make all the gentlemen in the public offices, now so handsomely paid for their trouble, think themselves fully requited for their services by a vote of thanks, were this organ to be exclusively encouraged in the children of the present incumbents. A strict attention to the organ of righteousness, might sweep away at once all the expensive establishments of courts, judges, and lawyers; and the due production of the organs of veneration and benevolence, might save our successors, in less than thirty years, the expence of churches, and the payment of tithes. And were other nations not to adopt the great discovery now promulgated, approbation might and it were necessary to have a standing army kept up, one or two hundred thousand children, with steel caps which should allow only the organs of combativeness and destructiveness to enlarge in their infant craniums, would place the country in perfect safety from the danger of foreign invasion; while a due proportion of the organ of determinativeness in our peasantry and mechanics, might make our subjugation a matter of absolute impossibility. In short, the thirty-three divisions into which the skull is arranged, and the thirty-three propensities corresponding to these divisions, may be so modified, by adopting metal cases for the covering of the heads of the young, as to produce any quantity of talent required. The Parliament have only to pass an act, ordering a sufficient number of these skull-moulds to be made, of various sizes, for the use of every parish; and to make it felony, without benefit of clergy, for the next generation to be without them, at least till the wished-for organs have sufficiently displayed themselves. Of the effects of this discovery upon the future fate of the world, nobody who possesses one bump out of the thirty-three can allow himself to doubt. The extravagance of one sovereign, might easily be made up in the penuriousness of his successor; and indeed the measure, by a lit tle care on the part of the parish officers, might make the least wise of the next generation equal to Newton or Bacon; and the least eloquent not inferior to Cicero or Demosthenes. In fact, the world might be made, in less than a century, to advance further in intellectual and moral improvement, than it has done for the last five thousand years. Wars, and the ravages of war, might be made for ever to cease; and the multiplied and varied generations of mankind, might, without rivalry, walk their round upon the stage of life, free from the irritations of passion, and from every stain of moral turpitude which could either embitter their wanderings in time, or lessen their hopes of immortality. Then should we have professors of anatomy and butchers (to use a common me * This is printed costiveness, by mistake I presume, in the second edition of Dr Spurzheim's book. See Dr Hamilton's work on Purgative Medicines, for the allevia, tion of this troublesome complaint; and the Doctor himself for its permanent cure. taphorical expression,) born with the knife in their teeth; lecturers on every branch of science calculated to acquire the necessary information from their cradles; or, what perhaps would be still better, the metal caps might be constructed so as to allow no faculty to expand beyond the mediocrity of hopeless dulness, or absolute stupidity; and then the money now expended in the education of the young, in cultivating faculties unmarked, perhaps unexisting, in the bony covering of the cogitative pulp, might be applied to more hopeful and necessary purposes. CHAPTER II. I hae a theory lying in saut, Lad, gin ye lo'e me, tell me true; I hae a strong notion ye've mony waur faut Than the thing that the Carles are to try ye for now, I hae a theory wantin' a leg, Lad, gin ye lo'e me, tell me now; There's mair in the shell than inside o' the egg, Old Song. Phren. I'll tell you what you are, my honest friend, (On secrecy from me you may depend,) You don't love women hate the thoughts of wine ? Now, tell me truly-Do I right divine ? Mur. No, Sir! - You're wrong for once. I loved the fair The decent ones I mean beyond compare : Seduction was my forte; and, as for wine, Little of that delicious drink was mine; But when well on with good plain Highland whisky, I was too sly to blab, or even seem frisky. Phren. You had no wish to kill, but to escape ? Mur. Why, there you're right, sir; but, when in a scrape, One may knock down, and think of nothing ill; This was my case but blows will sometimes kill. Dialogue between a Phrenologist and a Murderer.* Having, in the preceding chapter, laid the basis of my great discovery before the public, I now proceed to some of the minor details. The great matter at the first commencement of the plan would be, to provide accurate models * As our respectable correspondent, Sir Toby Tickletoby, has omitted to insert a motto for this chapter, perhaps from not having carried his library with him to the Moors, we have taken the liberty to prefix two, one from a well-known old song-the other from manuscript of " Haggart's Life, done into English verse, by an Eminent Hand," which has been sent us for publication. To ascertain the fidelity of this paraphrase, we were at the trouble of comparing it with the original published narrative, and now subjoin the parallel passages. Phre. "The present communication is entirely confidential, and will not be abused. David Haggart is therefore requested to be open, and completely candid in his remarks. P. 159. "You would not be the slave of sexual passion, nor greatly given to drink." P. 167. Hag. "You have mistaken me in this point of sexual passion; for it was my greatest Failing that I had a great inclination to the fair sex; not, however, of those called prositutes; for I never could bear the thought of a whore, although I was the means of cading away and betraying the innocence of young women, and then leaving them to The freedom of their own will. I believe that I was master of that art more than any cher that I followed. "A little spirits were always necessary, although I could abstain from them at pleasure, according as it suited the company I was in. When in drink I was very quiet, and would think twice before I spoke once." - Pp. 167, 168. Phren. " You would never be cruel or brutal; and you would never inflict serious fering upon any individual without bitterly regretting it?" P. 167. of skulls, with the required organs properly displayed, for the purpose of having caps made of all sizes to suit the growth of the infant cranium. A search in the tombs of great men, whose excellence in any art or science was known and ascertained, might in this view be attended with very beneficial consequences; but as in cemeteries where thousands are annually buried, the confusion of skulls and bodies is such in a few years, that one would not be able to identify even their own bones, the effects to be derived from skulls drawn from this source, could never be accurately depended on. It has therefore struck me, that a more certain way of procuring models would be to have them made from the craniums of existing talent, where talent is wanted, or from the head-pieces of patriotism and incorruptible integrity, if any such should be found to exist in the country. In my speculations on this subject, I at first thought that removing the integuments from the outside of the cranial covering, or scalping our celebrated countrymen for the purpose of making casts from the bones of their heads, would be sufficient; but as anatomists assert that skulls are not everywhere of the same thickness, there may exist bumps and depressions on which the talents depend, only to be discovered by an internal examination of the shell after the removal of the kernel. It is not too much to expect, therefore, that the possessors of those craniums which have made a noise in the world, or which have been the cause of the celebrity of their proprietors, may leave them as a legacy to their admiring countrymen; but it would be far more patriotic, certainly, were they now to give give them up to the modeller, before old age evaporates the cranial contents, or an additional deposit of osseous matter fills up some on the cavities on which eminence depends. The Duke of Wellington, for instance, the first general in Europe and who has so often hazarded his lif for the benefit of his country, would I am certain, have no objection to hav his body shortened a few inches to pro mute so much good, and thus be th matrix of a hundred future Welling tons; and I feel quite confident tha none of our own celebrated country men, and we have a good many, woul hesitate for one moment to sacrific their heads to the future and certain im provement of their native land. In plac of one Stewart, and one Scott, (at pre sent the brightest luminaries in ou Scottish horizon,) we might, in a fe years, have hundreds of the one, ar thousands of the other; and provide we were wise enough to keep the me dels in our own hands, (for they ha Hag. "Cruel to my inferiors I never was, but I rejoiced to pull the lofty down, make them on a fair level with their brethren in the world. Whatever I did, I net looked back to my former crimes with regret, as I never thought that was of any use." P. 167. " I laid one low with my pistol. Whether I have his murder to answer for, I canı tell. But I fear my aim was too true, and the poor fellow looked dead enough." P. 32. "Before he had time to challenge me, I hit him a very smart blow on the head w the butt-end of my whip."-P. 109. "Our only object was liberty-not to murder poor Thomas Morrin." P. 167. Phren. "The greatest errors have arisen from a great self-esteem, a large combati ness, a prodigious firmness, a great secretiveness, and a defective love of approbati No others of the faculties appear to possess an undue degree of energy or deficiency.' P. 160. " Your nature is, in many respects, different from your actions." P. 169. We have quoted these latter passages to shew what an excellent man Haggart v but for his unfortunate convictions, and as additional proofs of the soundness of the the which our correspondent has so eloquently advocated. Though it has been insinuate us in more than one quarter that the observer must have been either blind or "lush when he made observations so little in accordance with the registers of the criminal cou and though we have heard it remarked as an odd manner of characterising the pro sion of robbery, seduction, and murder, to term it merely "a sporting line of life, yet as David, according to the indications of his cranium, was "an honourable ma and his observer is known to be " an honourable man," we make no farther remark, t by repeating with Mark Antony, that " so are they all, all honourable men." C no such heads in any other country,) of soul, as if Hume tained in his thoracic cavity? and does not a cannon-shot through the breast put a stop as effectual to the operations it had been directed to the head? All that the phrenologists say is, that particular powers of mind or soul have been proved to manifest themselves in peculiar developements of the bones of the head; and all that I say is, that by my glorious invention, (as I have no doubt it will be termed by after ages,) the growth and developement of these bones may, in early life, from their yielding quality, be made to accommodate themselves to the display of any required faculty of mind. There is a strong argument from analogy, which may be here mentioned in illustration of the doctrine now propounded. Trees, it is well known, when left to take their own mode of growing, always delight to luxuriate in the wild irregularity of unshapely and unpruned branches; though it is quite well known to the skilful gardener, that they can be made to assume the form of a fan or a cone on walls, or expand horizontally on espaliers, at the pleasure of their early instructors, and still, after all, be trees, and bear fruit better than in their wild uneducated state. Now, I will not do my fellow-creatures the injustice to suppose, that they are less susceptible of cultivation than plumb or cherrytrees, or that the bony covering of their thirty-three propensities is harder than holly or boxwood, or more untractable than the teak or "knotted oak." But further illustration is unnecessary; the very mention of the circumstance must carry conviction to the mind of the unprejudiced observer of nature. It may be objected to the magnificent discovery now enunciated, that the sou may not choose to occupy a habitation moulded to a certain shape, and that, if forced to reside in a house she does not like, she may sit sullenly in her cell, and disappoint the hopes * By the bye, why is the soul always of the feminine gender, and the mind neuter ? The Soul, secure in her existence, smiles Hark, they whisper!-Angels say, I hope some of those metaphysical writers, who bewilder themselves and confound others, by the indiscriminate use of the terms soul, mind, brain, thinking principle, and so forth, would answer the question. My own soul, I am convinced, is an independent masculine spirit, which shall survive long after the pulpy attributes and bony faculties of phrenological minds shall be crumbled to dust. |