KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



405 



the utmost fifteen per cent. Personally they can 

 have no objection to do so. They are not to be 

 allowed to protect the retailers from ruin, there- 

 fore they may now look to themselves alone. 

 Let them accept the terms of their opponents, 

 and regulate their discounts accordingly. Not 

 a day should be lost in this, and it should be 

 done by general consent. It was not noticed in 

 these discussions that nearly the same large 

 allowance is made by newspapers. The "Times" 

 did not say that it was doing the very same thing 

 with its own sale for which it was abusing the 

 Publishers. But so it is. The retailers' allow- 

 ance thereon exceeds twenty per cent. ! 



The Authors, strangely enough, suppose, that 

 they would benefit by cheap books 1 Mr Glad- 

 stone recalled the remarkable fact that in Eng- 

 land few books enjoy a sale of 1,000 copies, and 

 he attributed this to their being expensive. But 

 he is not aware, perhaps, that for price to have 

 a material effect upon the sale of a book, it is 

 not sufficient to reduce a 15s volume to 10s. 

 This would not introduce it to a new class, nor 

 would it tempt those who now borrow at a 

 library or belong to a book-club, to buy it. 

 Unless a book is reduced to such, a price that it 

 is but little more expensive to buy than to borrow 

 it, no such increase of circulation can be obtained 

 as will equal the loss by the diminished price. 

 The highest price that will admit of this is 3s. 6d. 

 But the price that most certainly turns the scale 

 between the borrowing and buying, is one 

 shilling. 



Now a book sold at a shilling, even if largely 

 successful, does not yield sufficient profit to 

 enable a publisher to pay more than a trifling sum 

 for the copyright. We believe that even the 

 " Parlour Library," which has enjoyed the 

 largest sale of any of the shilling books, has not 

 permitted more than £30 being given to any 

 author or translator. Will our best authors be 

 content with such pay for that which, in the 

 usual type, would occupy three volumes? Cer- 

 tainly our best authors will not] and then the 

 effect will be a decline in our literature. True, the 

 public will continue to buy and read, in in- 

 creasing numbers, but they will be content with 

 shilling reprints of old works and American 

 importations, which alone can be sold at that 

 price, because they are not burdened with a 

 copyright ; and new books by writers of our day 

 will still be limited to few, and if buyers are 

 few, the price must be large. 



PHRENOLOGY FOR THE MILLION. 



"He who opposes his own judgment against the con- 

 sent of the times, ought to be backed with unanswerable 

 Truths ; and he who has Truth on his side is a iool 

 as well as a Coward, if he is afraid to own it because of 

 the currency or multitude of other men's opinions." — 

 Defoe. 



No. XIIL— DR. GALL'S OWN PREFACE. 



Foe, a long period, I continued my researches 

 as I had commenced ihem, urged on solely by 

 my fondness for observation and reflection. 

 Abandoning myself to chance, I gathered for 

 several years all that it offered me. It was not 

 till after having accumulated a considerable mass 

 of analogous facts, that I felt myself in a state 



to arrange them in order. I perceived succes- 

 sively the results, and at length had it in my 

 power to go to meet observations and to multiply 

 them at pleasure. 



But again, the more progress I seemed to have 

 made, the more everything appeared to con- 

 spire against me. Here, a phenomenon sup- 

 posed something utterly at Avar with the dogmas 

 of physiologists; there, a consecpience presented 

 itself which refused to harmonise with the 

 opinions of philosophers ; and here, many fancies 

 were raised respecting the dire influence which 

 my researches were to exert on morality and 

 religion. 



In this continual struggle of facts with received 

 notions, what was to be done? Was I to listen 

 to the simple voice of nature, or, to the arrogant 

 counsels of reigning doctrines? Was I prepared 

 to interpret rightly the language of nature? I 

 had so often deceived myself — who could answer 

 for me, that I should deceive myself no more? 

 Was it not a ridiculous pretension for a young 

 man, to hope that his efforts would reveal to him 

 things which for ages had escaped the researches 

 of the greatest observers? On the other hand, 

 supposing that my labors were not to be totally 

 vain, was it not an imprudent and rash enter- 

 prise, to oppose opinions so long established in 

 the various sciences; to contradict the ana- 

 tomists, physiologists, philosophers, metaphy- 

 sicians, lawyers, &c. ? 



How many times have I probed my con- 

 science, to determine whether a vicious pro- 

 pensity, unknown to myself, did not guide me in 

 these reeearches? But, as I could not have fore- 

 seen whither they would lead me, no prospect of 

 reputation could have influenced me in pursuing 

 them ; and beside, was it the best mode of attain- 

 ing fame, to venture to announce extraordinary 

 propositions, destitute of probability, and which, 

 if false, must be proved such, at no distant 

 period? 



The love of truth, and a conviction of the 

 purity of my views, could alone have inspired 

 me at each step with the confidence and the 

 boldness, necessary for my task. When one has 

 discovered by experiment a scries of incontestible 

 truths, he meets all possible doubts and objec- 

 tions with courage. Each doubt resolved, is a 

 difficulty removed ; each objection refuted, is an 

 error overthrown. In this manner I soon suc- 

 ceeded in removing the obstacles, and in peace- 

 ably pursuing my course- I especially fami- 

 liarised myself, at an early period, with the 

 following observations, which ought to be deeply 

 engraved in the mind of all observers and of all 

 readers. 



The more important a new view may be, and 

 the more nearly the doctrine is likely to touch 

 the affections and interests of men, the greater 

 care should be taken by the author to avoid 

 every kind of rash and arbitrary assertion; but, 

 the moment he announces the truth, he ought to 

 be assured beforehand, that he can produce only 

 good. Let these truths concern the nature of 

 man or the nature of brutes, let them unfold the 

 physical or mental nature of living beings, he 

 will bo always able to appeal to the harmony 

 and order which reign in the universe. Is it not 

 the same Creator who has made the moral and 



