Still days, and weeks, and months but)

seem

The recollection of a dream,-
So still we glide down to the sea
Of fathomless eternity."

"Blackford! on whose uncultured
breast,

Among the broom, the thorn and whin,
A truant boy, I've sought the nest,
Or listed, as I lay at rest,-
While rose, on breezes thin,

The murmur of the city crowd,
And from his steeple jangling loud,
St Giles's mingling din.

Now from the summit to the plain,
Waves all the hill with yellow grain;
And o'er the landscape as I look
Nought do I see unchanged remain,—
Save the rude cliffs and chiming
brook,-

To me they make a heavy moan,
Of early friendships past and gone.".

I will now return to the object I had first in view in speak. ing of Sir Walter Scott, viz. that of shewing to those phrenologists who make this feeling a part of the functions of that organ marked No. 3, that it is distinct from Concentrativeness. For we find that Sir Walter Scott, upon your authority, was deficient in the organ of Concentrativeness. There can be no doubt that Sir Walter had the emotion of the past very strongly in his mind :—and to shew how I arrive with certainty at this conclusion, I shall again extract a few lines from his poem of Marmion :

If I

may

"An ancient minstrel sagely said,
Where is the life which late we led?
That motley clown in Arden wood,

Whom humorous Jacques with envy viewed,
Not even that clown COULD AMPLIFY

ON THAT TRITE TEXT SO LONG AS I."

be allowed to speculate already on the subject, may it not have been such a feeling that led Sir Walter's mind back with such devotion to times and usages long gone by; and, perhaps, also gave him a taste as an antiquary.

What seemed to strengthen my opinion, that that part of the brain marked unascertained is the organ of a faculty which gives a tendency to the mind to look to the past, was the fact of its being immediately below another faculty, which gives to the mind a tendency to look to the future. At all events, my opinion respecting the functions of this organ is not inconsistent with its situation. I will now draw to a close this too long letter; I have merely suggested to you what I think is true. But observations and facts are still wanted; but I am content that the examination of the subject is in hands more able to pursue and investigate it than I can ever be. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, J. K.

[P. S.-I may state that Gray's Elegy, and Burns's song of "Auld Langsyne," seem to breathe the very spirit of the faculty, especially the latter.]*

We have much pleasure in inserting this letter sent us by Mr Combe, and consider the views contained in it to be worthy of a careful examination. EDITOR.

PHILANTHROPIC ECONOMY; OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF HAPPINESS 'PRACTICALLY APPLIED TO THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND COMMER *CIAL RELATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN. BY MRS LOUDON. London: Christison. 1835.

A remnant of Edinburgh anti-phrenologists, whose cases are for life, struck, no doubt, with the sound practical wisdom which the phrenological writings deduce from a clear analysis of mind, and the relation of its faculties to the rest of nature, have imagined a new formula which is fast getting into cuckoo currency;"The phrenologists, in their boundless presumption, would monopolise all the good sense current in the world to themselves, and allow to no one else a particle of natural sagacity." On this notable charge we would observe, first, that it admits our possession of, and traffic in, good sense, which was long denied us; all forestallers and engrossers, commercially at least, not only possessing the valuable commodity monopolised, but pos sessing it abundantly; and, secondly, while we have arrived at good sense by a road entirely of our own, which has rendered it more demonstrable than any other, and decidedly more systematic and practical, we have not only not grudged the meed of it to others who have come at it by other ways, but have uniformly hailed them as fellow-labourers in the same cause; and by applying our own test to their views, have made it matter of certainty that they were right; allotting them the more merit, just because, while we are aided by a powerful instrument, they reached the work by their own unaided sagacity. There would be more merit in surveying a field by the eye, though more accuracy in doing it by the theodolite. If the said clique would condescend to look into our books, now ra ther voluminous we grant for zeal of the temperature of theirs, they would find this spirit of fairness, and even favour, to good-sense" writers manifested in every page. This is an swer too, to what is always, in such cases, at our opponents' tongue end," So! you admit that your science can be done without." We admit no such thing. We say this. Our science, by discovering and ascertaining the primitive faculties of the human mind, and the relation of these to external nature, has given us the means of testing good sense, and reducing it to a regular harmonious means of human happiness; while the merely sagacious writers had no such standard, and neither themselves nor their readers could have perfect confidence in the soundness of their views. Phrenological writers have re-. ceived, in several instances, this tribute from writers of the na

66

tural-sagacity character;-that they, the phrenologists, were the first to give them perfect confidence in theirown speculations. Of this class is the talented writer of the work before us,a work which would have given any man a high place as a moral philosopher; but, as the production of a woman, is not exceeded by anything in the language. She has written good sense from native sagacity; she has got more than a haphazard glimpse; she has commanded a systematic view of the moral fitness of things,the true sources of human happiness. But we know, from herself, that when she came to read the phrenological books, which she had not done when she wrote, she felt, though not till then, with the power of demonstration, that what she had written was sound; adding, with that modesty which graces real talent and merit, that had she read the phrenological philosophy first, she would not have dared to have written at all. Every phre nological reader of our fair author's work will rejoice with us, that she was not a phrenologist when she wrote her " Philanthropic Economy," and that her modest declaration itself may be taken as an avowal that she is a phrenologist now. We bail here accession to the good cause. These are converts worth having. The lamented Dr Macnish, our readers know well, was another such.

In applying to the general plan of the work before us the test of the phrenological philosophy, we may observe, that if it be only the phrenologist who is qualified fully to appreciate the author's views, it is not matter of wonder that they are understood and appreciated to so limited an extent by an unphrenological public, as not to have had nearly the circulation, or done nearly the good to which they are entitled, and for which they are calculated. They are far above the practical appre hension of the mass of an age of which a mere handful know what are the primitive faculties of man, with the relation of these to the creation of which he forms a part;a knowledge which has thrown a flood of light upon the moral world, which was previously as dark and inscrutable as the physical world was clear and harmonious. "Philanthropic economy" is a position too high for the age; which, moreover, is yet without means to mount up to it. It is a tower's top without ascending steps,-a mountain's summit without a practicable slope. It is read, imperfectly understood, much admired, considerably distrusted, perhaps pronounced utopian (an invaluable and easily pronounced word to many), and forgotten. We can name a work which will supply the desiderated slope to its elevation; and we deem the previous study of that work so im portant to the due impression of that before us, that we coun sel the author herself to recommend it in her next edition; we mean Mr George Combe's " Constitution of Man in relation

to external objects." Upon the mind deeply imbued with the truths in the Constitution," every sentence of Mrs Loudon's "Philanthropic Economy" would tell with a lasting practical effect; which it never has done or will do upon a mind not so prepared.

The author, prompted by the workings of her own moral faculties directed by a fine intellect, feels as well as sees that selfishness is not wisdom, either individual or social; but that benevolence and justice, summed up in the scriptural precept "Love one another," and its convertible term " Good will to all," is the only stable foundation of social happiness. Based on this principle, she infers that that disposition of things called the Economy of Society,-etymologically, the rule of its house,-which has hitherto been a term confined to the means of accumulating wealth, and then called Political, should be more extensively named Philanthropic Economy. The object of this is to increase, to the utmost amount of human power, the general happiness; beginning with the removal of misery from millions of the poor, ignorant, and helpless, by a right application of benevolence and justice to their condition, and the communica tion to them of the power of improving themselves by what she calls "an universally spread education." She urges upon the world the serious consideration of the views she offers; and com bats the notion that they are abstruse and political. She submits "opinions which, if universal, would cause happiness to become a habitual sojourner among us; yet which are so simple in their truth, so capable of recommending themselves by their own symmetry and beauty, that they are independent of ability on the part of those who advocate them, and need but to be fairly represented to be embraced with enthusiasm by every hu man being who possesses a mind neither warped by self-interest nor devoid of understanding."

The phrenologist, who knows the faculties and their related objects, at once sees this to be practical wisdom, and not as it will probably appear to others, mere sentimentalism. If it were a mere sentimental theory, it would follow, first, that the moral faculties were given to man in vain; and, secondly, that Chris tianity, which requires even more, is a sentimental theory also. He knows that benevolence and justice, which delight in brotherly love, good will, and equal rights, are not virtues to adopt or not as we please, but actual innate human faculties as much as the five senses; that they are, moreover, the highest in rank in the human constitution; that they were given to be exercised; and that the pleasure of exercising them must be in proportion to their supremacy. He looks around in nature and sees human civilization and consequent happiness keeping a marked pace with the operation of these two faculties, and barbarism and

"bro

misery widely spreading under the reign of the lower or selfish feelings. That, in short, it is in the moral world rightly understood that the highest happiness is to be found; that it is not broad enough to say that honesty is the best policy; the maxim is more extensive, benevolence, or as the author says, therly love, good will to all," is the best policy. This is capable of demonstration, but one too lengthened for this short paper. The principle is fully evolved, as based on experience and facts, in "the Constitution of Man" already referred to.

The author gives her view of the causes of human happiness in an able and eloquent exposition in the outset of her work, which she terms the " Philosophy of Happiness ;" and announces her plan to be to test, in the sequel, several existing institutions and customs by the principles which she has laid down. Her dedication is striking:-"To every human being on whom God has bestowed the girt of reason, this earnest appeal to reason, to justice, to honesty, to pure morality enforced by sacred obligation, to every nob'est sympathy of humanity, is, with ardent feelings of good will to all, inscribed by the author." We give her introduction entire. "A short preliminary view of that system of morals traceable in the works of God, and to which the writer has ventured to give the title of the Philosophy of Happiness, is attempted in the first chapter of this little work, for the purpose of making it manifest to the understandings of all who will but look calmly at existing facts, that almost the whole of the evils under which mankind suffer are caused by the abuse of free-will, which consists in neglecting to frame our artificial social circumstances (that is those arrangements which depend on exertions of free will, such as the laws and voluntary customs of men,) on the model of our natural social circumstances, that is of those states of being and mutual relations which are arranged for us by that portion of the laws of God which we commonly call the laws of nature, and over which neither individual nor collective free-will has any control: while those laws being practically revealed (in their very operation) directly from God himself to each individual, in each individual's own nature and natural circumstances, the sacredness of their sanction cannot be contested; by which means, if we make agreement with those laws, which we thus know to come from God, the Test of Right, in framing laws and customs to be instituted by man-a standard of moral and legislative truth which cannot change, and which is acceptable to the humblest christian, because in perfect accordance with scriptural precepts, yet which compels the assent of the boldest sceptic, because the sources of its sacred authority are perceptible to the senses, is obtained, to be applied to the various laws and institutions, which it is intended in the body of this work to discuss separately.