all of the educated and respectable class, and several of them clergymen and medical practitioners. DUNDEE PHRENOLOGICAL SOCIETY.-It gives us great pleasure to announce the formation of the first Phrenological Society north of the Forth, and in so large and populous a town as Dundee. It has commenced with 10 or 12 members, composed of gentlemen of the medical, legal, and mercantile professions. We have seen their developments, and augur well for the advancement of our science in such able hands. We understand that they expect to speedily increase their numbers, to have stated hours of meeting, and to furnish themselves with the Phrenological books, casts, &c. COPENHAGEN. We hear from Copenhagen, that in the beginning of November Dr Otto received the collection of casts transmitted to him by Messrs O'Neill and Son, and had announced his lectures on Phrenology. The public interest in the science is there rapidly extending; Dr Otto's Danish work is widely circulated, and continues to be highly spoken of in the literary journals, not only of Denmark, but of Germany. He has lately been appointed physician to an extensive Penitentiary for every kind of criminals, and has the most ample liberty to prosecute the science by observations on them. He intends to publish a work on Phrenology in Ger man. Mr COMBE, we observe, has announced a course of popular Lectures on Phrenology in the Clyde-street Hall, commencing on Tuesday, 10th January, at 3 p. m., which ladies are invited to attend. Dr CAMERON of Liverpool commences a course of lectures in the middle of February. THE TRANSLATION OF DR GALL'S LARGE WORK is postponed, in consequence of the new and greatly-enlarged editions of Dr Spurzheim's and Mr Combe's works having rendered it for the present unnecessary. Edinburgh, 31st December, 1825. CONTENTS. Page II.-Case of a Mechanical Genius,............................ III.-An Apology for the Study of Phrenology,...... IV.-On the Faculty of Concentrativeness,......... tions of the Organ called that of Weight,......... 207 VI.-Questions to a Phrenologist, with Answers,............ 213 VII. Comparative Phrenology.-Size and Activity,......... 218 VIII.-On the Phrenological Causes of the different Degrees of Liberty enjoyed by different Nations,......... 223 IX.-Fatalism, and the Church of Scotland,.................. 252 X.-The London Phrenological Society,..................... 259 XIII.-Dr Gall's Visit to the Prisons of Berlin and Spandau, 297 XIV.-Dr Elliotson and Phrenology,............. XV.-Scolding of Juries,........................................ THE PHRENOLOGICAL JOURNAL. No X. ARTICLE I. An Essay on Education, applicable to Children in general; the Defective; the Criminal; the Poor; the Adult and Aged. By Richard Poole, M. D. Edinburgh, Waugh and Innes, 1825. DR POOLE enjoys the distinction of having been the first to throw the light of Phrenology on the previously dark and darkened theme of education. The essay before us appeared in the Encyclopædia Edinensis six years ago, and thereby claims priority in publication to Dr Spurzheim's work on the same subject. Although priority is much, philosophical merit is more; and we bestow the highest tribute on the work, when we say that, like Dr Spurzheim's, it is phrenological throughout; and yet, in so saying, we do not flatter the author, seeing that he had the benefit of working with an instrument unknown to all previous writers in that difficult branch of moral science. The phrenological foundation of his essay is, nevertheless, veiled by our author from all but the Phrenologist's eye. This simple but effectual hood for the hard head of prejudice was easily provided; for, as the science is recognised by the unphrenological by its nomenclature alone, the author had nothing to do when speaking of the faculties, but VOL. III-No X. to avoid their technical names. The success of this plan has been amusingly complete; for the depth of thought, consistency of principle, and precision of expression, which the Phrenologist is at no loss to trace to their true source, have struck many non-phrenologists who have read the book, and, as we know, have drawn from them a willing acknowledgment of the marked superiority of this above former treatises on education, whose authors lacked both a guide and a torch, and trusting to what is called their own sagacity alone, tried their way in the dark, unaided by knowledge of human nature founded upon any thing like established principles. Having once relished the fruit, however, it will be awkward, when they discover the fact, to disown the tree which produced it.* In a perspicuous and ably-written introduction, Dr Poole points out the objects of education. "Education, then," says he," it is believed, does not create genius, nor bring a single faculty into existence which was not implanted in the mind. Its operation consists entirely in cultivating those powers which na"ture has bestowed, and, chiefly, on the general principle of exercising them on suitable objects. It supposes, therefore, the pos"session of these powers, and proceeds on the idea, that it is pos"sible to call them into action, by presenting their appropriate ex"citements, and to direct their application, by rules derived from "experience. "Here arises a question which has given employment to every "age, and which still exercises the attention and ingenuity of man"kind. What are the number, the kinds, and the combinations of "our intellectual and moral powers? Unfortunately, instead of "endeavouring to ascertain and describe these from observation, as "matters of fact, the generality of philosophers have contented "themselves, and too often satisfied their readers, with theoretical "speculations, which, if they have any merit at all, beyond the display of the eloquence or the talent they have called forth, deli"neate only a few, and those the most obvious of our mental phenomena. But, scarcely even as to these, it may be remarked, do any two writers perfectly agree; and this is a proof, either of ex"treme obscurity and variation in the objects, or of some error and "perplexity in the modes of investigation adopted." 66 * We could refer to some edifying examples of this solecism in newspapers and other periodicals, which, although in the habit of endeavouring to run down Phrenology, have highly approved of Dr Poole's essay. |