it also infer impossibility? If there is no distinction between great difficulty and invincible necessity, then the following is a just proposition: The ascent to the summit of Mount Blanc is extremely difficult, therefore—it is impossible.

You inform us," it has been whispered that some of the "most popular of our gospel teachers have given an unequivocal approbation to the principles of Phrenology; but this is a rumour "which I utterly discredit, as a most scandalous libel upon the clergy of the church of Scotland," &c. Alas! for the church of Scotland. We must say with the widow of Phinehas, “Ich"abod, the glory is departed from Israel;" for I must give you the disastrous information, that, being personally and intimately acquainted with the popular teachers to whom I know you refer, I state of my own knowledge, that, while some of the most eminent are decided and avowed Phrenologists, all of them, more or less, give their approbation to the phrenological doctrines; and farther, that a knowledge and belief of these doctrines are rapidly spreading among "the "most popular of our gospel teachers," whether in the church or out of it, from Dan even to Beersheba.

You tell me, "I cannot refrain from expressing an honest "doubt, whether the author of the article in question ever gave "himself the trouble of reading that Confession of Faith to which "he has thus boldly and confidently appealed." I answer, I have read the Confession of Faith,-I signed it many years ago as the confession of my own faith, when I was admitted as an office-bearer in that church of which you say you are a member; but I ask, in return, have you read the Confession of Faith? If you have, where, I pray you, did you find that "quotation from the admirable preface of the Confession of Faith" which occupies the two concluding pages of your pamphlet ? No such preface is to be found within the four corners of the authorised version of that book, published under the authority of his Majesty's Printers. In charity to mere "phrenological laymen," you should have told us, that there is some other version besides the common and authorised one.

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It were endless, however, to proceed with this analysis, or to detect all the errors into which you have fallen. I shall, therefore, in conclusion, only answer one of the "plain ques"tions to which," you observe, "I have no doubt, the Phrenologists "will be prepared to give me the most distinct and satisfactory answers. Individuals," you proceed, "either do or do not generally "act in a manner corresponding to their particular cerebral orga"nization. If they do, then I can understand Phrenology," &c. Now to this question, I make the following "distinct" answer. Not only do individuals act "generally," not only always, but they act necessarily " in a manner corresponding to their particular cerebral development." The blind girl Ann Ormerod is as incapable of manifesting the faculty of Tune like George Aspull as she is incapable of seeing; and it would have been equally impossible for David Haggart to have felt or manifested the sentiment of justice in the same degree with the Rev. Mr M-, because the organ of that faculty was small in the one and large in the other.† Let one such case as that of Ormerod or Haggart be produced, the one manifesting, in a high degree, the faculty of Tune, and the other of Conscientiousness, and then, and not till then, will you inflict a mortal blow on Phrenology; but while you leave us in undisputed possession of the field of observation, you may as well revive the clamour of a former century, and exclaim that the church is in danger, because the earth turns round upon its axis.

In truth, it does not amaze me much to see learned professors reading long and elaborate essays to crowded philosophical societies; others, like yourself, printing and publishing pamphlets, and the wide world struggling to put down this 66 pestiferous nonsense Phrenology," when, after all, its refutation is so simple and so easy. There can be no want of will in our adversaries; nor do they seem to grudge the labour

See Phrenological Journal, vol. II., p. 642.

+ I refer to the effects which conversion would produce on individuals so constituted to an essay on this subject in the Edinburgh Christian Instructor for December 1823.

of the refutation. Witness the midnight oil wasted in the elaborate compositions of our opponents,-at least of one opponent. Why not rather pay a visit to the Phrenological Museum? With unexampled fairness we disclose all our secrets to the inspection of friends and foes. Our doors are open every Saturday forenoon, and we not only permit, but invite every one to examine and judge for himself. In that museum there are the actual skulls, or casts of the heads of individuals of almost every nation in the world, (and the national characters of the Hindoos and Europeans, e. g. are sufficiently marked,) and of individuals of every possible variety of character. We have casts of the heads of authors, poets, actors, statesmen, clergymen, painters, &c. &c., besides those of more than fifty criminals, whose characters have been sifted before judges and juries, by witnesses on oath, cross-examined by counsel learned in the law. Here, if any where, we are indeed vulnerable,―assail our facts and we are undone. Phrenology admits of no exceptions. A single instance of such an individual as Ann Ormerod, manifesting decided musical talent, will do far more to cut up Phrenology, root and branch, than the gentle epithets which erst were bestowed on its advocates of "quacks, empirics, impostors, hypo"crites, German illuminati, crazy sciolists, abortions, fools, "frenzied and infernal idiots."

But remember, to adopt the beautiful quotation from Lord Bacon which now adorns the title-page of the Phrenological Journal,-"As in the inquiry of Divine truth, the pride "of man hath ever inclined to leave the oracles of God's word, and "to vanish in the mixture of their own inventions; so, in the self"same manner, in inquisition of nature, they have ever left the ora "cles of God's works, and adored the deceiving and deformed ima" gery, which the unequal mirrors of their own minds have repre"sented unto them. Nay, it is a point fit and necessary in the front "and beginning of this work, without hesitation or reservation to "be professed, that it is no less true in this human kingdom of "knowledge, than in God's kingdom of heaven, that no man shall "enter into it, except he become first as a little child.”

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ARTICLE X.

1. THE LONDON PHRENOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

OFFICERS AND COUNCIL.

PRESIDENT.-John Elliotson, M. D.

VICE PRESIDENTS.-C. A. Tulk, Esq. M. P.; Robert Maugham, Esq.; John G. Teed, Esq.; J. G. Sedgwick, Esq.

SECRETARY.-Joseph Moore, M. D.

TREASURER.-Mr James De Ville.

COUNCIL-G. Murray Paterson, M. D.; George Fisk, Esq.; James Florance, Esq.; John Gray, Esq.; George Lewis, Esq.; James Macdonnell, M. D.; Alexander Black, Esq.; John Flint South, Esq.; Eugene Nugent, Esq.; Charles Poole, Esq.; George Rudall, Esq.; W. Herman Vowler, Esq.

Ordinary Members, with Date of Admission.

March 31, 1824.-John Elliotson, M. D. Physician to St Thomas's Hospital; George Murray Paterson, M. D.; James De Ville; William De Ville; Frederick Glover; George Fisk; Joseph Moore, M. D.; John Flint South, Surgeon.

April 3.-Edward Davey, Surgeon; Charles William Moore, Surgeon; William Herman Vowler.

April 10.-Robert Maugham, Solicitor; Thomas Gandy. April 17.-Julian Hibbert; Frank Wood, Surgeon; John Gray; Eugene Nugent; Charles Smith.

May 4-Charles Augustus Tulk, Esq. M. P.; John Godfrey Teed, Esq. Barrister at Law; George Lewis, Engraver.

June 19.-James Macdonnell, M. D. Welbeck Street; Thomas Wakeley, Surgeon; Edmund Wylie, Surgeon.

July 3.-James Sedgwick, Esq. Somerset House; Edward J. Lance, Lewisham; George Herbert Rodwell, Adelphi; George Rudall, Berner's Street; James Florance, Solicitor, Finsbury Square.

November 6.-John Marshall, Esq. Hallstead, Cumber

land.

November 20.-Edward Speer, Esq. New Inn.

January 15, 1825.-Charles Poole, Esq. South Audley Street; Edward William Burton, Solicitor; Alexander Black, Tavistock Street.

February 5.-William Henry Crook, Lisson Grove.

February 19.—James Lambert, Apothecary to the Middlesex Hospital; Richard Light.

March 5.

Cocks, Surgeon; John Isaac Hawkins;

Walter Macgregor Logan.

March 18.-Captain D. Ross, R. N.

March 30.-Emerson Dawson; Edward Astbury Turley. April 8.-John Burton, Solicitor.

April 22.-Charles Wheatstone; Samuel Highley; Thomas Alcock, Surgeon; Joseph Hayes, Surgeon; David Pollock, Esq. Barrister at Law; Sir James Gardiner, Bart.; William Lance; De Viande.

May 19.-Thomas Goyder, Strand.

June 5.-William Turner Comber; Camberwell; S. C. Humfrey, Barrister at Law, Temple.

June 16.-John Jarman Dovey.

HONORARY MEMBERS.

May 15, 1824.-François Joseph Gall, M. D., Paris; John Gaspar Spurzheim, M. D., Paris; George Combe, Esq. W.S., Edinburgh.

CORRESPONDING MEMBERS.

May 4, 1824.—The Baron Theotoky, President of the