CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 321 



rational theologian will direct his hostility against any theory which 

 acknowledges the agency of the Creator, and only attempts to point 

 out the secondary instruments he has employed." What will the 

 reader suppose is Mr. Fennell's comment upon this ? We defy him 

 to guess. Neither more nor less than a confession of his own irra- 

 tionality. Hear his words : — " Most assuredly I am that irrational 

 being V After this we think it needless further to follow one who 

 " sees (we are no longer surprised, indeed !) no necessity for preci- 

 pitation and crystallization" in the rocks, and chemical or mechani- 

 cal deposit of the earth's crust. 



As the world, he probably supposes, may be impatient for his 

 promised poem, after such an exhibition of his prose, he kindly adds 

 a few extracts by way of staying the appetite of public curiosity and 

 impatience. As a specimen, we can only afford space for his reasons 

 why no remains of human skeletons have been found : they are 

 quite on a par with those we have quoted, and as satisfactory, no 

 doubt to himself, whatever they may be to others : — 



"They search for remnants of the human frame 

 Amongst their fossil reptiles. Fruitless be 

 Their search ! Of dust was man created; 

 And unto dust doth he return. Nor art 

 Egyptian, nor alchemic nature, 

 Shall preserve what nature's God have given 

 To the winds till the great final day." 



Statistics of Phrenology ; being a sketch of the progress and presen 

 state of that Science in the British Islands. By II. C. Watson 

 Small 8vo., pp. 252. London, 1836. 



Mr. H. C. Watson divides his Statistics of Phrenology into five 

 distinct sections and a supplement ; and in publishing this sketch 

 he professes to be actuated by the hope of lending some small as- 

 sistance towards accelerating the future advances of this branch of 

 science. 



Section I. comprises an historical sketch of the progress of 

 Phrenology, considered in respect to its reception by the public. 

 Mr. W. begins his history with a notice of Gall's first lectures in 

 J 796, with an account of Spurzheim's first visit to England in 

 1814, and his proceedings there till the publication of his Physios;- 

 nomical System in the following year. The progress of the sci- 

 ence is then traced onwards to 1825, when Mr. Combe's System of 

 Phrenology appeared, and gave rise to a series of polemical discus- 

 sions not very creditable to the principles and judgment of the 

 writers by whom Mr. C.'s doctrines were controverted. This is fol- 

 lowed by examples of opposition to Phrenology subsequently to 

 1825, while an animated view of its future prospects concludes the 

 history. In the future prospects of the science, says Mr. W., we 

 find nothing to darken its brightened aspects ; indeed, the onward 

 glance shews everything more bright and hopeful. The men of 

 vol. v. — no. xviii. 2 s 



