290 
children in reading and writing is equal 
to that of any other children of their age. 
The order of the fchool, and decency of 
manners, excites in the mind of the fyec- 
tator pieafing and affecting contemplation : 
it would wreft the barbarous from his fe- 
rocity, and evince to the mind, thar it is 
not the colour of the fkin that defignates 
the favage. Return. J. MEIGcs. 
City of Wafbington, Dec. 1805. . 
ea te ’ 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
OUR readers are donbtlefs under ob- 
ligations to you for the curious in- 
formation you have afforded them in a 
matter fo much talked of on the Continent 
as Dr. Gali’s Sy@em of Craniology. Burt 
asthe leading place affigned to it in your 
Mifcellany, and the air of coniequence 
with which it is ufhered to notice, may 
imprefs many with an opinion of its truth 
and importance, I fhall requeft your infer- 
tion of a few remarks, the tendency of 
which is to fhew, that a more abfurd, fu- 
tile, and_groundlefs fpeculation, was never 
in an enlightened age prefented te the pub- 
lic. In fa&, it is a worthy fucceffor to the 
worn out impeftures of aftrology and chi- 
romancy ; and the reception it has met 
with is a proof that there always exifs a 
fund of folly and credulity among man- 
kind upon which a pretender to ex'raordi- 
nary difcoveries may freely draw. Jts fuc- 
ceis among a people fo much diftinguifhed 
of late years by metaphyfical fubtlety, 
may indeed excite fome furprize; but that 
fubtlety has fo much pafied the bounds of 
plain fenfe, and has penetrated fo far into 
the regions of myticifm, that it has pro- 
bably rather prepared the way for the ad- 
miffion of .extravagant hypotheles, - than 
fortified the reafon againft them. 
I fhall. begin by obferving, that the 
whole phyfiological bafis of this theory, 
(if it may be {0 called,) is a piece of tri- 
via] and dubious analogy. The faét that 
maan has a greater proportisnal quantity of 
brain than.other animals, (which, how- 
ever, is not univerfally true,) has ied to 
the inference that the fize of the brain is 
coonected with the quantity or degree of 
the intellectual faculiy. Adm/tting this 
to be true with refpeét to mind or inrel'ect 
in general, it muit have been alfumed by 
Dr. Gell, that fuperiority in any particu- 
Jar mental quality wijl be accompanied by 
fuperior buik of fome portion of the drain 
which is the feat of that quality ; aad 
further, that fuch fupevior bulk will be 
Remarks on Dr. Gail's Syftein of Cranislogy. 
{ May 1, 
denoted by fome correfpondent elevation 
of the fkull, which fhall be fenhble to fight 
or touch. But what a balelefs fabric is 
this? In the firit place, the bulk of the 
head, and therefore of the whole brain, in 
man, is not found by experience to bear 
any raiio to the mental capacity ; hence 
there would be no reafon from analogy to 
expect that fuch ratio fhould exift with re- 
fpe& to particular capacities, did we even 
know in what part of the brain they refid_ 
ed. But, fecondly, fo far from our being 
able to point out the local refidence of any 
particular mental faculty in the brain, we 
are toally ignorant of the relation of any 
part of it tothe predwétion of thought or 
fenfation ; and we ¢an only in geaeral 
conclude, from the phenomena of life, that 
the brain is the feat and organ of all men- 
tal operations. The degree or extent of 
thefe faculties or operations has probably 
_no reference whatever to material bulk ; 
at leaft it is certain that no anatomical re- 
fearches have hitherto difcovered fuch a 
reference. Jtis manifelt, then, that there 
cannot be a more wanton {port of the fan- 
cy, or rather a more impudent piece of 
quackery, than to draw a map of the fur- 
face of the ikull, dividing it into imaginary 
regions of intelleé&t or moral character, 
when no anatomiét would undertake, from 
the niceft dific&tion of the whole brain, to 
detest the organic diverfity which pro- 
duces the difference between the greatett 
genius and the ftupideft dunce, the moi 
vittucus and the moft vicious of men. 
The ancient folly of cividing the heavens 
into howfes, diltinguithed by particular m- 
fluences derived from the arbitrary appel- 
lations of the ftars and confteilat’oms, was 
net: more vifionary than Dr. Gall’s cranio- 
Icgical map, even fuppoing that all the 
regions in it were defignated by qualities 
that might be regarded as innate, and. 
connected with a material and organical 
caule. But she extravagance is heighten- 
ed by the metaphytical abfurdities of his 
fyitem, which are net Jefs glaring than the 
phyfical, as I fhall proceed to fhow. 
Tn his litt of organs, the annexed qua- 
lities are in great part merely of a fecon- 
dary nature, induced by habit and educa- 
tion. What, for example, is a prepenfity 
to thieving, but the common felfith prin- 
ciple operating in a particular mode, and 
unchecked by moral dilciplac. Every 
child will without heiitation take the toy 
crapple of ancther, till it is taught other- 
wife; as every brure animal wiil perma- 
neatly obey its felffh inftinits. 
whole tribe of South Sea iflanders are 
* thievea 
The. 
