bols of unknown quantities or qualities, with which metaphysicians work out their theorems, but which seldom or never yield determinate and positive answers? The idealist, the materialist, the zoist, may dispute, if they please, about the relative value of their mental calculus; but as to the real nature of that which is obviously beyond human reason to comprehend, they must, I fear, be content to remain in darkness-to "wait the great teacher Death, and God adore." Your obedient servant, AN OLD SUBSCRIBER.

DUNDEE, February 1844.

V. Letter from Mr Combe to a German Sculptor settled in Rome, on the Application of Phrenology to the Fine Arts.

VENICE, 12th May 1844.

DEAR SIR,-Your letter of the 23d of April [criticising the first article in the Phrenological Journal for that month] was delivered to me when I was in the midst of my preparations for leaving Rome, and I could not then answer it; but I now avail myself of my first leisure day to send you a few observations in reply. Permit me, however, to mention, that although I understand a little of the German language, I have never thoroughly mastered the reading of the German written character, and, in consequence, have experienced some difficulty in decyphering your letter. If on any topic I have misunderstood you, be so good as to ascribe my errors to this cause.

Ist, As to the extent to which Phrenology is applicable to the Fine Arts, I beg leave to observe that, before any one can pronounce a sound judgment on this point, he must know not only Art, but Phrenology. I find, that in proportion as an artist is acquainted, intimately and practically, with the latter, he appreciates highly its utility to the painter and sculptor. Those who have only some crude conceptions concerning it, view it as very unimportant for any purpose; and this is natural; for few men can justly estimate the use of any science which they do not understand. You and I, however, need not dispute upon this subject; for if those artists who study and apply Phrenology, improve their works by it, their success will, in time, settle the question of its value to Art.

2dly, You remark that the ancients, without Phrenology, produced works which are unrivalled, and that Art will be more likely to prove useful to Phrenology than Phrenology to Art No one doubts that the ancients produced admirable works of art, but they did so, not by departing from, but by fully adhering to nature; and Phrenology is the knowledge of human

nature, in so far as mind is connected with body, reduced to the form of a science. According to my observations, every work of the ancients, which is really excellent, conforms to the principles of Phrenology: it seems to have been modelled after nature, and Phrenology is a description of nature systematised. But the ancients occasionally deviated from nature, and produced imperfect works; and these are at variance with Phrenology. When the moderns, under the inspiration of genius, have followed nature, they also have produced works of first-rate merit, which likewise conform to Phrenology. But, like the ancients, the moderns have also deviated from nature and from Phrenology and in such instances have failed. The use of Phrenology to the artist consists in this,—that it presents him with a system of knowledge which enables him to understand what Nature means by her forms, and also the relations between her different parts in other words, it reveals to him scientifically the meaning of the forms of the head, and their connections with the character and expression of the body, and puts it in his power to deal with these elements of his art scientifically, instead of empirically, which last is all that a mere observer can accomplish.

3dly, You are mistaken in supposing that I have referred to Mr Steinhauser's group of Hero and Leander. Not one word of my description is applicable to it; and if you have mentioned to him or to any one else, that I have criticised it, and fallen into the very palpable blunders which you ascribe to me, I beg the favour of you, as an act of justice equally to him and to me, to correct the mistake, and make it known that my remarks apply to an entirely different group.

4thly, In regard to my observations on the female model, and on the three busts of her, allow me to mention that several artists in Rome who had employed her, concurred in representing her dispositions to be such as I have described them; and one of them, in opposition to your statement of the reason of her imprisonment, assures me that she is not licentious in her conduct, but, on the contrary, "the only virtuous model in Rome." If I have been misled in my information concerning her character, I am obliged to you for your attention in correcting it; but I observe that it is of no importance to the present subject whether your account of her dispositions, or that of these other artists, be the true one. (I did not advert to her head and conduct as a proof of the truth of Phrenology, but alluded to her head, and (be her dispositions what they may) to the three busts of her, as an example of the little attention which some artists pay to representing accurately the natural forms of the head in their busts. It is my conviction, from what I

saw in your studio, (and it is confirmed by your letter), that you do not view particular forms of the head as indicative of particular mental dispositions and talents, and do not believe in any natural connection between these particular forms and particular expressions of the countenance; and that, therefore, you did not aim at copying the peculiar forms of the head of the model accurately. If you did mean to do so, then it is a question of fact between you and me whether you have actually done so or not. You say that I could not judge without having placed her head side by side with the bust, and instituted a minute comparison. On the other hand, I venture to say that it was not necessary for me to do this, because the differences were so striking, that any ordinary observer, accustomed to study the particular forms of the head in reference to the dispositions connected with them, could perceive and remember them; and this remark applies to the other busts, as well as to yours. But you are well aware that it is a rule in philosophy never to attempt to determine a point by mere argument, which it is possible to settle decisively by an appeal to facts. If, therefore, you had placed the model beside your own bust, and compared her head minutely with it, and had then written to me that you had found it to be an accurate copy, this fact would have been more to the point than all the arguments you use to prove that my observations could not be correct. If you will still place the bust and head together, and ask Mr Laurence Macdonald (who is accustomed to study the particular forms of heads) to be present when you compare them, I will publicly acknowledge my errors, and apologise to you, through the press, if you (with his adherence to your opinion) find them to correspond in the particular forms and proportions which give specific character to the head, and which, of course, confer value on a bust, as a representation of an individual.

5thly, You say that you cannot consent to circumscribe art by the trammels of a hypothetical science; and that you regard Phrenology to be such, and, as such, that you will oppose it, You are quite justified in declining to circumscribe art by a hypothetical science; but you must allow me again to observe, that, as you have not studied Phrenology, you are premature in deciding that it is a hypothesis. Some of the applications which I have recently made of it to art are new, and open to discussion; but the basis on which they are founded, namely, Phrenology itself, is not a hypothesis, but the statement of well ascertained facts. Indeed, if you had known its actual condition in France, Great Britain, and the United States of America, you would not have characterised it in such terms,

So far from imposing trammels on art, Phrenology will set it free from those trammels under which it has long laboured, and under which it is still in bondage. It is well known that art is governed by the authority of the ancients, and of the great masters among the moderns, and that very few artists can tell on what principles either the ancients or the great moderns proceeded in their practice. So far as my information extends, there is neither a philosophy nor science of art; on the contrary even in the best treatises on the subject, much is empirical and much conventional. Where reason appears, it too often springs, not from well ascertained principles, but from the instinctive sagacity of the individual author. The public taste is more or less conventional; and in Rome I saw abundance of evidence that conventionalism still exercises a powerful influence over many studios. What the ancients, and Michael Angelo, Raphael, Caneva, and Thorwaldsen have done, must be followed by every artist, each in his own line, and according to his own taste and talents; but what the principles of nature are, or what are the links which connect the works of these great men with nature, is very imperfectly understood. Phrenology will substitute principles founded in, and demonstrable from, nature, as authorities in art, instead of these names; and it will enable the student to apply the torch of reason and of truth to the works of every age and of every master, and also to guide his own steps by their beams. This surely will be giving freedom to art, and not placing trammels on its practice.-I am, &c. GEO. COMBE.

VI. Remarks on Mr Simpson's Letter on Hypnotism, published in the Phrenological Journal for July 1844. By Mr JAMES BRAID, Surgeon, Manchester. (From the Medical Times, No. 258, 31st August 1844.)

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MEDICAL TIMES.

SIR, In the last number of the Edinburgh Phrenological Journal, I observe an elaborate and clever article by James Simpson, Esq., advocate, on my views and practice in Hypnotism, as personally witnessed by him during his late visit to Manchester. The article, as a whole, does great credit to the perceptive, reflective, and descriptive powers of its learned author. Few could have done so much, and so lucidly, with the opportunities he enjoyed; but it was not to be expected that he should have mastered the whole subject at once; and I am desirous, through your pages, of correcting the two

chief errors into which he has fallen, especially as they relate to a department on which I contributed a paper in your 216th Number.*

The points to which I refer, are the different modes of exciting the mental manifestations during the nervous sleep. In your 216th Number, I stated three different theories which had been advanced by others, namely, 1st, That they arose from the unexpressed will of the operator exciting the ideas and propensities in the patients, from the power of the latter to read the secret thoughts and desires of the former; 2d, That they arose from a magnetic or peculiar stimulus passing directly from the finger of the operator through the skull, and stimulating the portion of brain immediately subjacent to the point of contact; 3d, Arbitrary association, by a system of training, or to previous knowledge of Phrenology. I then adduced, what appeared to me, arguments sufficient to prove the untenableness of the first two theories; and, whilst I admitted the possibility or probability of the third, still I held it to be an arbitrary and artificial system, compared to that which I have adopted, as the most natural and simple of all which have yet been propounded, because arising from the anatomical relations of the physical frame. I endeavoured to explain the whole on the laws of sympathy, and association of ideas, connected with automatic muscular motion, which I shall presently explain briefly.†

It is necessary here to explain, that, at what I call the second stage of sensation during Hypnotism, the muscles subjacent to any point titillated instantly have a tendency to contract, or the patient manifests a tendency to lean against the point touched; and then the tendency to self-balancing, so

Mr Braid's paper, here referred to, was reprinted by us, at page 18 of this volume. ED. P. J.

† We omit the explanation, as it has already been repeatedly given in this volume, pp. 21 and 266. By stimulating the muscles of expression of various emotions, Mr Braid, as our readers will remember, excites in the mind those feelings which usually precede the muscular actions. With respect to some of the cerebral organs excited by touching the head over them, the theory appears not inapplicable; but in the case of such organs as Veneration, Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Imitation, Tune, and Constructiveness, it is difficult to see in what manner excitement of the muscles over these can rouse the faculties,

We take this opportunity of expressing our obligation to Mr Braid, for the ready kindness with which he lately exhibited to us several interesting hypnotic cases in and near Manchester. The phenomena exhibited were of the kind which Mr Simpson has graphically described in our July number. In particular, we saw the reversed manifestations" when Mr Braid touched the head over the organ excited, as well as when he touched the muscles of expression, while the patient was in what he stated to be the third stage of Hypnotism.—ED. P. J,