54 LIFE OF 



lighted to trace the hereditary direction which cultivation 

 through successive generations had given to natural instinct ; 

 and in the course of his experiments on the improvement of 

 fruit and animals, he had made many curious observations as 

 to the qualities which are transmitted by one or the other 

 parent ; and he sometimes amused himself with endeavouring 

 to trace in human subjects the same analogy, by which certain 

 moral and physical peculiarities were derived, some from one 

 parent, and some from the other, and which he was disposed 

 to imagine might be reduced to something like rule. His 

 opinions on this subject are glanced at in the subjoined letter 

 to Sir George Mackenzie, as well as his view on the tendency of 

 modern education, both immediately and prospectively ; and a 

 few extracts from letters to other of his friends touching on 

 similar points will follow. 



" Downton, Sept. 29, 1836. 



"My DEAR SIR, 



" I have delayed troubling you with a letter, till I had read 

 with attention both your little publications, and that of Dr. 

 Caldwell. Both have given me very great pleasure ; and though 

 I cannot say that I am so much a phrenologist as either of you, 

 yet I perfectly agree with you in the conclusion which you have 

 drawn in a great extent of cases, that certain forms of skull 

 are favourable, as indicating powers of thought ; and I have long 

 believed that exertion of mind through successive generations, 

 and proper selection of males and females, might give not only 

 greatly enlarged powers of mind, but also better organised 

 brain, and skulls of better forms. Upon the ill effects of 

 modern education we are entirely of the same opinion ; and I 

 perfectly agree with Dr. Caldwell respecting the ill effects of 

 subjecting the brain of young subjects to any degree of painful 

 labour. I have seen, during the course of a very long life, many 

 very clever over-educated children ; but I have never seen any 

 instance in which the brain- worn child of twelve years old dis- 

 played at a later period much powers of mind. Talents which 



