the maniac; "but you are laughing at me, you are all too much afraid of me." "I have six men," said Pinel, "ready to enforce my commands, if necessary. Believe me, then, on my word, I will give you your liberty if you put on this waistcoat."

He submitted to this willingly without a word. His chains were removed, and the keepers retired, leaving the door of his cell open. He raised himself many times from his seat, but fell again on it, for he had been in a sitting posture so long that he had lost the use of his legs. In a quarter of an hour he succeeded in maintaining his balance, and, with tottering steps, came to the door of his dark cell. His first look was at the sky, and he cried out enthusiastically, "How beautiful!" During the rest of the day he was constantly in motion, walking up and down the stair-cases, and uttering short exclamations of delight. In the evening he returned of his own accord to his cell, where a better bed than he had been accustomed to had been prepared for him, and he slept tranquilly. During the two succeeding years which he spent in the Bicêtre, he had no return of his previous paroxysms, but even rendered himself useful by exercising a kind of authority over the insane patients, whom he ruled in his own fashion.

The next unfortunate being whom Pinel visited was a soldier of the French Guards, whose only fault was drunkenness; when once he lost self-command by drink he became quarrelsome and violent, and the more dangerous from his great bodily strength. From his frequent excesses, he had been discharged from his corps, and had speedily dissipated his scanty means. Disgrace and misery so depressed him that he became insane: in his paroxysms he believed himself a general, and fought those who would not acknowledge his rank. After a furious struggle of this sort, he was brought to the Bicêtre, in a state of the greatest excitement. He had now been chained for ten years, and with greater care than the others, from his having frequently broken his chains with his hands. Once, when he broke loose, he defied all his keepers to enter his cell until they had passed under his legs; and he compelled eight men to obey this strange command. Pinel, in his previous visits to him, regarded him as a man of original good nature, but under excitement, incessantly kept up by cruel treatment; and he had promised speedily to ameliorate his condition, which promise alone had made him more calm. Now, he announced to him that he should be chained no longer, "and to prove that he had confidence in him, and believed him to be a man capable of better things, he called upon him to assist in releasing those others who had not reason like himself; and promised, if he conducted himself well, to take him into his own service." The change was sudden and com

plete. No sooner was he liberated than he became obliging and attentive, following with his eyes every motion of Pinel, and executing his orders with as much address as promptness: he spoke kindly and reasonably to the other patients; and during the rest of his life was entirely devoted to his deliverer. And "I can never hear without emotion (says Pinel's son) the name of this man, who, some years after this occurrence, shared with me the games of my childhood, and to whom I shall feel always attached."

In the next cell were three Russian soldiers, who had been in chains for many years, but on what account no one knew. They were in general calm and inoffensive, becoming animated only when conversing together, which was unintelligible to others. They were allowed the only consolation of which they appeared sensible-to live together. The preparations taken to release them alarmed them, as they imagined the keepers had come to inflict new severities; and they opposed them violently when removing their irons. When released they were not willing to leave their prison, and remained in their habitual posture. Either grief or loss of intellect had rendered them indifferent to liberty.

Near them was an old priest, who was possessed with the idea that he was Christ; his appearance indicated the vanity of belief: he was grave and solemn; his smile soft, and at the same time severe, repelling all familiarity; his hair was long, and hung on each side of his face, which was pale, intelligent, and resigned. On his being once taunted with a question, that "if he were Christ he could break his chain," he solemnly replied, "Frustra tentaris Dominum tuum." His whole life was a romance of religious excitement. He undertook on foot pilgrimages to Cologne and Rome; and made a voyage to America for the purpose of converting the Indians: his dominant idea became changed into actual mania, and, on his return to France, he announced himself as the Saviour. He was taken by the police before the Archbishop of Paris, by whose orders he was confined in the Bicêtre as either impious or insane. His hands and feet were loaded with heavy chains, and, during twelve years, he bore with exemplary patience this martyrdom and constant sarcasms. Pinel did not attempt to reason with him, but ordered him to be unchained in silence, directing at the same time that every one should imitate the old man's reserve, and never speak to him. This order was rigorously observed, and produced on a patient a more decided. effect than either chains or dungeon; he became humiliated by the unusual isolation, and, after hesitating for a long time, gradually introduced himself to the society of the other patients. From this time his notions became more just and sensible, and

in less than a year he acknowledged the absurdity of his previous prepossession, and was dismissed from the Bicêtre.

In the course of a few days, Pinel released fifty-three maniacs from their chains: among them were men of all conditions and countries; workmen, merchants, soldiers, lawyers, &c. The result was beyond his hopes. Tranquillity and harmony succeeded to tumult and disorder; and the whole discipline was marked with a regularity and kindness which had the most favourable effect on the insane themselves; rendering even the most furious the more tractable.

ARTICLE IX.

A SKETCH OF THE ACCORDANCE BETWEEN THE INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY OF BACON AND THE APTITUDE OF THE HUMAN INTELLECT, AS DEMONSTRATED BY PHRENOLOGY. BY DANIEL NOBLE, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and President of the Manchester Phrenological Society.

IN reviewing the history and progress of philosophy and the sciences, nothing is more calculated to excite our interest and admiration than the rapidity with which their advancement has been characterized for the last 200 years. In tracing their condition from the remotest periods down to the seventeenth century, we shall observe the greatest poverty and destitution. During these ages, though the name of philosophy and the name of science were by the wise and by the multitude held in almost godlike adoration, still,-except in a few solitary instances, men calling themselves philosophers omitted, at least successfully, to cultivate the reality. When Copernicus and Galileo appeared, they were regarded with feelings of hate and awe, so overwhelmed were mankind with what appeared to be their boldness and impiety in daring to investigate and explain what had previously been regarded as inscrutable mysteries.

But let us direct our attention to these things as they exist in our own day, and how changed is the prospect! Mankind would almost appear to have obtained the mastery over the natural laws themselves; so much so, at least, as to be enabled to wield them to their own advantage and wellbeing in almost every relation of life. When we compare the state of society at the present day with that which existed at more remote periods, how sensible are we not rendered of the splendid achievement of modern science! If we survey the existing state of every civilized community, we shall trace in its most intimate relations the vast

• Read before the Members of the Manchester Phrenological Society at the opening of the session, October 6. 1835.

and beneficial results which have accrued from that rapid advance in true philosophy which the last two centuries have witnessed.

Now, for the extraordinary alteration in the condition and in the practical results of the sciences, there must be some adequate cause. And, as we may not inaptly designate "science" to be the result of the right application of the human intellect to the investigation of nature, we must necessarily look for such cause either in the greater intellectual powers of mankind in modern times, or in the improved method in which these powers are applied; for nature has not, in her laws at least, undergone any observable change within the periods of history.

How far can the position that the mental faculties of the human race have received an accession of native capability within the last two hundred years be maintained? To an extent, I humbly contend, that would be utterly inadequate to the explanation of that rapid flow of the "onward tide of human improvement," so manifest in more modern times. For if we refer to the works of the leading men of antiquity, as philosophers, poets, orators, mathematicians, we shall certainly find nothing to countenance the idea of their being furnished with a low grade of intellectual capability. It was the method in which the powers of the mind were exercised and applied that prevented the advance of true philosophy, and the improvement of the sciences; and it was by the propounding and by the application of a new method, that mankind were enabled to obtain satisfactory results from their scientific labours.

Before the true nature of that method can be properly appreciated, it becomes necessary to say a few words relative to the philosophy which formerly prevailed. In remote ages, and down to a very recent period, philosophers, in exercising their intellectual powers in the investigation of scientific truths, devoted themselves almost exclusively to the cultivation of their reasoning or reflective faculties, and this, in most cases, to the complete neglect of the powers of observation; and hence, when they applied themselves to the solution of any problem in physics or in metaphysics, they would run lightly over in their minds the few facts with which accident rather than design had made them acquainted; then, by the conception of some false analogy they would invent a theory, and ultimately fashion their few facts to a fancied accordance with this theory, rather than modify the latter so as to agree with the facts. In this most imperfect and fallacious method was the human intellect exercised for centuries; general axioms being directly raised from a few ill-digested particulars and, these being rested upon as unshaken truths, intermediate axioms were attempted to be discovered from them, while facts in opposition, when absolutely forced upon the atten

tion, were distorted and misinterpreted, so as to accord with preconceived notions, or they were rejected altogether:—it was declared that the illusive subtle character of the senses rendered them unsafe and incomplete helps to the human intellect; that the only sure guide to man was that exalted faculty which so nobly distinguished him from the rest of the visible creation, the reasoning faculty; that the senses were only to be regarded as the servants of the intellect; and that, as a theory was more particularly the offspring of reason, and the perception of a fact only that of sense, the daughters of sense must, with all submission, yield in humble prostration to the majesty of the daughter of reason. It was even held that an observation of nature should be doubted rather than a theory of the human reason. Thus when there arose a philosopher of great intellectual strength, who, having taken a superficial survey of almost the whole range of science, invented numberless theories fallacious as plausible, and fashioned a comparatively small number of facts into a fancied accordance with these theories, the whole world was in admiration, and stood captivated by the charm; and thus, for at least two thousand years, the real advancement of science was entirely suspended, and philosopher and the multitude bowed alike with submission to the all but infallible authority of the mighty Aristotle! When men like Galileo or Copernicus advanced their new doctrines, they were tested by an appeal not to nature, but to the works of the Grecian philosopher! In such a state of things the natural powers of mankind could not have their legitimate direction; and we find that the philosophy of the middle and more remote ages was almost altogether of the professorial and disputatious kind, a method utterly unfit for the investigation of truth.

As illustrations and obvious instances of the fallaciousness of the old system of philosophy, and as proofs of the false and unsatisfactory conclusions to which it led, I will adduce the ancient speculations relative to the elementary and constituent principles of things, as taught by three of the most celebrated philosophers of ancient Greece,-Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle. They all taught, as an uncontroverted maxim, that " from nothing nothing is made," and consequently that matter is eternal; but they varied as to the precise mode in which the existing system of the universe came to be fashioned into order. Pythagoras taught that matter was originally destitute of all sensible qualities, including form itself; and that, being passive and plastic, it was operated upon " in some era of the ages" by an intelligent agent, co-eternal with itself, on the mathematical principle of numerical proportion. He compared the existence of matter, in its primary amorphous state, to arithmetical numbers before they are rendered visible by figures:-" Unity," says he,