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give to the higher principles of the Christian religion, an attention and importance not easily arrived at by other sects, whose attention is dissipated on points by the Friends considered dispensable, and admitted by all to be of minor importance--that this is the distinguishing feature of the practice and principles of the Friends, and which they have maintained since the time of George Fox.

GLASGOW, January 1836.

JOHN MAXWELL, M. D.

[Thinking it desirable that Mr Browne's reply should appear at the same time with the preceding communication, we requested him to furnish a vindication of his statements; which he has accordingly done in the following terms.-ED.]

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL.

MR EDITOR,

I have replied to your correspondent with reluctance: first, because he has evidently misunderstood the object of the article which he has attempted to denounce; and, secondly, because he as evidently writes under the influence of the lower propensities, the predominance of which, I need not tell you, is altogether inimical to philosophical inquiry, places a good cause in jeopardy, and renders that which might be matter for mutual instruction the source of contention and quarrel. But as the character of your Journal for accuracy is at stake, I have resolved, forgetting and forgiving the implied accusation of "dishonesty."" inhumanity," " want of Christianity," &c. to make the following observations.

The object of the writer is to vindicate the character of George Fox from the charges of cerebral excitement and fanaticism contained in the passages which he has quoted. To effect this vindication, he conceives it necessary to accuse me, first, of misinterpretation of my authority; secondly, of exagge ration of the said authority; and thirdly, of ignorance of the opinions of Quakers as to regeneration. My views as to the state of mind in which George Fox passed the earlier part of what may, without offence, be called his public career, were derived from the following authors.

Mosheim describes Fox as " of a dark and melancholy complexion, and of a visionary and enthusiastic turn of mind. About the year 1647, which was the twenty-third year of his age, he began to stroll through several counties of England, giving himself out for a person divinely inspired, and exhort

ing the people to attend to the voice of the divine word that lies hid in the hearts of all men,*" &c.

In the paragraphs immediately following, the first disciples of Fox are designated "bacchanals,"" fanatics," &c. and in the notes, the whole question of Fox's deportment is discussed. One of these concludes thus: “ It is remarkable that the very learned Dr Henry More, who was himself not without a strong tincture of enthusiasm, and who looked upon Penn as a pious Christian, treated nevertheless George Fox as a melancholy fanatic, and one possessed with the devil. See his Mysteries of Godliness," &c.

Hume says in reference to this subject-" He, Fox, frequently wandered into the woods and passed whole days in hollow trees without company, or any other amusement than his Bible. Having reaclied that pitch of perfection as to need no other book, he soon advanced to another state of spiritual progress, and began to pay less regard even to that divine composition itself. His own breast he imagined was full of the same inspiration which had guided the prophets and apostles themselves, and by this inward light must every spiritual obscurity be cleared, by this living spirit must the dead letter be animated."+

He afterwards mentions, "that the violent enthusiasm of this sect, like all high passions, being too strong for the weak nerves to sustain, threw the preachers into convulsions, and shakings, and distortions of their limbs ;"" that from their breaking into churches, disturbing public worship, &c. they were sometimes thrown into madhouses, sometimes into prisons, sometimes whipped, sometimes pilloried. The patience and fortitude with which they suffered, begat compassion, admiration, esteem," &c.

Lingard, in commencing a narrative of the revolting extravagances of James Naylor, speaks thus of Fox: "The noise, the revelry which he witnessed (at a fair) led him to thoughts of seriousness and self-reproach; and the enthusiast heard, or thought that he heard, an inward voice calling on him to forsake his parents' house, and to make himself a stranger in his own country."

When reflecting on the subject, these authorities appeared to me sufficient to justify the opinion that Fox was at first an enthusiast. But I was aware that it might be objected, that each of them was prejudiced, though from widely different causes, against Fox, his followers, and their principles. I knew • Vol. ii. p. 269, Blaikie's Edition.

+ Chap. lxii. p. 674, Dinnis' Edition.

Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. xi. p. 245.

that it might be urged that the first was a churchman, the second a sceptic, the third a Catholic. Accordingly, in writing on the subject, I preferred quoting the most recent and the most unexceptionable authority, that of a Quaker. I concluded that by him Fox's character would be placed in the most favourable aspect; and that I might implicitly trust his statements respecting the points now under consideration. I quote the passage from Howitt to which allusion is made in my paper, and which confirmed me in the view which Mosheim, Hume, and Lingard had suggested :

"Now, I do not mean to assert that George Fox was free from the fanaticism of his age, or the eccentricities of a sanguine temperament, acted upon by the thousand excitements of one of the most stirring and remarkable periods of English history; far from it, he had his share of them: but these did not constitute his real character, they merely marked it. If we regard him only as a man riding on a white horse, and dressed in a suit of leather; if we fix our attention only on the facts of his having commanded a man at York to stretch forth a withered arm, and supposing that he had actually restored it; if we hear him declaring that a knowledge was given him of the medical qualities of all physical substances, and that he could cure all diseases, but did not feel himself called to it; or see him running with bare feet through the city of Lichfield, crying, "Wo to the bloody city of Lichfield!" and afterwards, when the wo did not arrive, wondering for what cause he should have been thus sent, and why the wo was denounced, and turning to the history of the place, and finding, as he might have found in others, that some Christians had once been slain there;—if, I say, we regard him only under these aspects, then he will appear ludicrous and fanatical enough. But these were not the bulk of his actions, nor illustrative of the main features of his mind. They were merely the spots on the sun, the foils and exceptions-the occasional extravagances of a great man under excessive excitement." *

Whether, in concluding from these facts, which your correspondent says are" unnecessarily admitted by W. Howitt," that George Fox was in a state of mental excitement, requiring medical treatment, I have either misrepresented or exaggerated the statements of my authorities, or done aught that was not warranted by strict justice and fair induction, I shall leave to you and the public to determine.

As to the charge that I have erroneously affirmed that Quakers use the word "regeneration" as a technical term, it is of minor importance. I did not, however, intend, nor am I of

• Tait's Edinburgh Magazine. Oct. 1834, p. 577.

overve that my words are calculated, to convey the idea that regeneration is either solely or generally employed by them. My object was to afirm that it, in common with "inspiration," is a technical term used by fanatics to designate a period of exdierent. When the term is rightly, that is, scripturally appued, either by Quakers or by others, I understand its import, and reverence the nature of the state which it represents. When it, or any other word, however, is used to signify a mere corporcal condition, which can be excited and removed by external agents, I must continue to expose and condemn such misappli

Your correspondent. Mr Editor, has adduced no proof whatever that my opinion as to the deportment of George Fox is erroneous Titil he does so, I shall continue to entertain that epizion. But notwithstanding my belief that George Fox, for a certain period of his life, was in a state of as great excitewent as the late with whom he is contrasted--notwithstandme my conviction that some of his immediate proselytes, ex. gr. Janes Navior and William Simpson, were maniacs-notwithstanding the strikingly intemperate tone of your correspondentfor that society of which he is a member, (I copy part of the essay upon which he has commented.) as at present constituted, as mogulsing justice and mercy as their cardinal virtues, I entertain perfect respect. And remain, your obedient servant, W. A. F. BROWNE. Meatness. February 13, 1836.

[It seems perfectly evident, that if Mr Browne fell into error respecting Gorge Fox, he erred involuntarily, and with the suction of extent authorities. Even supposing him to have erred, theretion, (which, however, most of our readers will probably agree with us in thinking by no means apparent,) it may be questioned whether the style of Dr Maxwell's communicathat is altogether unexceptionable, and such as ought to characterse a pelishical and religious discussion. We honour the seal with which he defends what appears to him to be truth; but must at the same time be permitted to express the opinion, that, in ascribing base and interested motives to those who, in the exercise of the common right of private judgment, have arrived at different conclusions, he has departed unnecessarily from the proper subject under review.—ED.]

ARTICLE IV.

REPLY TO AN OBJECTION TO PHRENOLOGY FOUNDED ON A COMPARISON OF THE BRAINS OF ANIMALS OF DIFFERENT SPECIES; AND TO THE ALLEGATION THAT CERTAIN ANIMALS ARE ALTOGETHER DESTITUTE OF BRAIN. BY CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D. Professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Clinical Practice in Transylvania University.

In a late number of The Christian Examiner, Phrenology has been assailed by a reverend gentleman, who, among other objections which we have fully answered elsewhere, brings forward one that is frequently urged, and therefore deserves to be considered in detail.

"But, above all," says he, "if it be true, as phrenologists assert, that this dependence of mind on brain holds through all the orders of animated nature, why is not the brain in the lower tribes always proportioned to the amount of mind manifested by them? It requires but a cursory observation to perceive that this is far from being the case. Not to insist on the example of vertebrated animals, in several of whom the proportion of the brain to the rest of the body is larger than in man; what are we to say of the astounding manifestation of mind displayed by the insect world; exemplified, not only in the wonderful contrivances of the bee, the spider, and the common ant, but in actions more wonderful still, as having no immediate reference to the necessities of life, and as bearing the nearest brute resemblance to the peculiar manifestations of human beings? Such are the wars of conquest carried on by different nations of the termites, in which the vanquished become the captives and slaves of the victors, and are subjected by them to all kinds of servile labour. Now in these animals, the brain (if there be any) is not only small, absolutely and relatively, but its very existence is exceedingly problematical. Many physiologists, with Linnæus at their head, have denied it." (No. 65, p. 260.) Before proceeding to a particular examination of this flourish, which rests entirely on a false foundation, we shall make a few remarks on the latter clause of it. That Linnæus has denied a brain to insects generally is true. But it is equally true, that his denial has not verified itself, by taking brain from them. And, in the very sentence which contains the denial, he has himself virtually contradicted and nullified it. The following are his words.

"INSECTS-Spiracles, lateral pores; jaws, lateral; organs of * See Phrenology Vindicated, &c. Lexington, Ky. 1835.