226 REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 



friends as its declared enemies.' Such retarders as those of the latter class must 

 be are truly too contemptible to merit more than a passing notice of pity. Some 

 eighteen or twenty years ago there was some excuse for the anti-phrenologists. 

 Phrenology being at that time opposed by the great bulk of eminent scientific 

 men, and almost unknown, even by name, to the majority of our country-men, 

 original observations and careful deductions were required to test its truth, and new 

 and apparently plausible objections might be raised against its pretensions. But 

 at the present day the face of affairs wears an entirely different, and, to the lover of 

 truth, afar more cheering aspect. Now that the phrenologist can adduce thousands 

 of facts in support of his system, and capable at the same time of demolishing 

 every argument against it, no one is excusable for remaining wholly ignorant of 

 so important a branch of knowledge, or for attempting to overthrow it — like too 

 many of our opponents — without consulting either the facts of friends or the 

 fancies of foes to the doctrine. In short, those who propose reiterating the stale 

 and vapid arguments against Phrenology for the thousand-and-first time, might 

 receive satisfactory replies to each and all of their objections from the merest tyro 

 in the science — replies that would render a man of ordinary candour and strength 

 of mind desirous of making every amends for having so long opposed the assist- 

 ance of so clear and pure a source of light. 



The Phrenological Journal has probably contributed little to popularize the 

 science to which its pages are devoted, but that it has turned many bitter 

 opponents into zealous adherents and ardent admirers of Phrenology, and that it 

 has greatly advanced the subject as a science, and proved a valuable chronicle of 

 passing events connected with the subject, during a period of fifteen years, can, 

 we think, admit of no reasonable doubt. The new series, as we have already 

 intimated, bids fair to eclipse even the old, and we trust that the present Editor 

 will not relax his judicious and hitherto highly successful endeavours to render 

 his journal as worthy of its title and objects as possible. 



Numerous as are the subjects treated of in the number lying on our table, the 

 work contains little that would be interesting to the mere zoologist, that is, to the 

 zoologist who feels no pleasure in investigating the natural history of the highest 

 of the animal series — Man. He who prides himself upon studying Nature (». «., 

 animals, plants, minerals, &c. &c), and who despises the occupations of the 

 schoolmaster, the psychologist, and the novelist, never dreams that their study is 

 Nature as well as his own, but in a higher department, and that it is not the less 

 so because modified by various and almost infinite circumstances. While the 

 principal business of the majority of naturalists is to observe facts, a good school- 

 master or a first-rate novelist has need of an ample development of the same 

 faculties in addition to others which are far more important. In making thi3 

 statement, some may suppose that we are depreciating Natural History commonly 



